Slightly Off-Course
by The Winged Pyro That Drowned
Summary: What happens if you Banish a Liset right before going through a Solar Rail? Why, it'll send them across space and into somewhere it definitely shouldn't be, as a young Mirage wearing Tenno discovers. Stuck in dock next to the one and only Normandy SR-1, Tessa's stuck in a First Contact situation only a Shepard could defuse. (ME1, FemShep, shit's gonna get crazy...)
1. Chapter 1

-.-.-.-

**Welcome, Tenno and Shepards, to a lovely little bit of chaos. **

**~Pyro**

-.-.-.-

Tessa struggled to wake up. _C'mon, get up… getupgetupGETUP!_

"Operator… are you alright?" the Cephalon AI Ordis asked her, clearly much more concerned than it _should_ be. What the hell happened to her?!

"Unnhn…"

"What is the last thing you remember, Operator?"

It took her a while to respond, what with opening her eyes and all. Somehow the young Mirage had landed with her ass in the air and her face jammed up against the console. "I… we… ooowwhhhh my head…" Tessa clutched her helmet warily, getting up cautiously.

"Please focus, Operator. I need to assess possible damages."

"_Fine…_" Tessa groaned. "We'd just… I think we were just about to get launched by the Solar Rail?"

The strained silence from Ordis was not reassuring in the least.

"Ordis…"

"Yes, Operator?"

"Why is the window blacked out? You only do that when I'm trying to get to sleep without my Cryopod."

…

"Any day now, Ordis… It's really dark in here. Why aren't any of the lights going?"

"Apologies, Operator. Before I open the curtains," it paused as the emergency lighting came on, "I'm afraid I have some… _news_."

Tessa opened her mouth to speak, but then there was a great big _thump_ and she found herself plastered on the massive, still black-shaded, window. And it was quite painful too.

"OW!" Tessa yelped as her Attica hit her in the gut. "Ordis, just tell me what the hell happened!"

"From what little data I have, it appears the Liset was Banished by a Limbo just as we were about to jump. As we already had our Void Mask up, the effect of being in the Rift at the time of launching was catastrophically horrid. The main reactor has gone offline, we were launched - _bzzrkkk A BLOODY LONG WAY tzzk- _off-course by a phenomenal distance."

She froze in place when Ordis' voice had turned into a raging ball of malice. "Ordis?" she whispered, "Are you… okay?"

"We have been subjected to an unknown wave of energy that almost completely fried us. I may require maintenance."

Damnit. Tessa disliked the Cephalon Suda for one reason and one reason only; she acted like Tessa was non-existent. She knew that hate was completely unneeded but Suda barely even acknowledged her existence. Ever.

And Suda was the only one capable of giving Ordis the maintenance he sorely needed.

"Also we have crashed into an unknown structure which I believe is a permanent stationary habitation platform."

Well that was interesting. "What do I have to do to get the reactor online again?" Tessa didn't like the thought of being stranded in an unknown environment without her ship.

-.-.-.-

Joker looked out the window and whistled, impressed. Some ship that looked a bit like a grey-and-white arrow had just smashed into the rear wall of the docking bay next to the _Normandy_ to leave a rather _large_ dent in it. As far as Joker knew, that was damn near _impossible_ with the rammer surviving the impact, let alone just _drift_ off as though nothing had happened.

He quickly keyed in Captain Anderson and Commander Shepard over the Comms as C-Sec officers started pouring out of the elevator to take defensive positions, all of them aiming at the unknown arrow-ship.

"Hey guys, we might have an issue over here."

-.-.-.-

"Just one mor- _bzzk NOT THE RED ONE!-_ … sorry. Put the green one in…"

Tessa diligently followed the instructions Ordis gave her as she messed about in the drive core behind the Arsenal. "Do we still have access to the Void?" she asked, suddenly concerned. Most of her stuff was stored in Void pockets!

"I don't know. It's possible they got knocked out of alignment when we were hit with the energy wave. Running calculations now."

"Okay. Which wire now?"

"We're done with wires. Just plug the Cells back in and I'll initiate the spin-up sequence," Ordis instructed, finally returning the window to its natural clear state.

Tessa gladly returned back to the top deck, stretching as she did. Say what you will about Orokin engine design, being a mechanic was a very cramped job. All that twisting and turning and guns were pointed at her. She froze in place, staring.

"What."

-.-.-.-

Anderson shook his head. "Harkin? I wouldn't bother with that looser. If you want to find Garrus you're most likely to find him at the docks; probably right next to the _Normandy_."

Kara Shepard raised an eyebrow questioningly. "Care to explain, Captain?"

"Joker said there was an accident with an unknown ship colliding with the dock next to the _Normandy_. C-Sec are going to be swarming all over it." Anderson replied with a small shrug.

Shepard nodded slowly, the motion causing a strand of her startlingly dark red hair to get in her face. She muttered something darkly and tucked it behind her ear again. "Any other leads we could use to get Saren?"

"None. Just Barla Von and Garrus."

"I better get going then," Shepard said with a tinge of sadness in her voice. She saluted Anderson calmly, as did Kaidan and Ashley behind her.

Anderson returned the salute before nodding and following Udina.

Kara turned to her squad and sighed, heading down the stairs to the elevator. "I never thought Anderson'd go like this."

"By backroom politics?" Ashley suggested venomously, scowling at the nearest Salarian. Thankfully that Salarian wasn't looking so no horrible firefight started.

-.-.-.-

"…" Tessa was speechless.

She'd found alien life. Not Grineer or Corpus or Infested kind of alien life. Heck, not even _Orokin_ alien life.

_And they were lizard people._

"Operator? May I suggest a peaceful first contact as opposed to a violent one?" Ordis sounded almost pleading.

"Why would I shoot them?" Tessa asked, still dumbstruck.

"They appear to have a lot of guns pointed at us. Apologies, I simply…"

"Don't worry about it, Ordis," Tessa said softly, rubbing the back of her Harlequin helmet. She liked that helmet. It'd been a gift from her father. "Is there any way to manoeuvre us into a docking position without scaring them?" she asked innocently.

"No."

"You're lying."

"No, Operator, I have checked their vital signs and similar ones nearby and they are very different. If I were to hazard a guess, I would say these _things_ are on a hair-trigger." Ordis explained, worry evident in his voice.

_Hey when did I start thinking of Ordis as a _he_? It's… he's… I guess this is what Dad meant when he said I'd bond with my Cephalon. He always referred to Asgaia like a sister. Like Mom did with Judakas, calling it a him. _

"Operator? Have you finished your internal monologue yet?"

"Shut up, Ordis," Tessa said, turning away as her cheeks blushed a _very_ hot pink.

"Your mother used to do that all the time," the Cephalon said, surprising Tessa out of her embarrassment. "While you were still in the womb, she would voice her fantasies of you to me, or reminisce about missions with your father, Corvad."

"She did?" Tessa asked quietly, a little bit in shock about that. Her mother used to monologue too?

"Yes, why- _bzzrk THE OLD HAG WOULD NEVER SHUT UP!-_ …" Ordis remained silent after that outburst.

"You're right," she chuckled, "you _do_ need maintenance."

She saw outside that things were suddenly moving. The lizard people had started piling up armoured crates in what looked like a small blockade around the only doorway into _wherever_ on the entire dock.

There was a ship just across the platform from them, something called a _Normandy SR-1_. Wait, what?

"Ordis is that… _English?_"

"Yes, Tessa. That is a ship that has been named the_ Normandy_. There are life-signs aboard, although I cannot identify which species they may belong to." Ordis had called her by name.

God, Tessa had become excited. She was truly bonding with her Cephalon now. She'd expected this to take a few more years at the very least.

"Brace for docking. I have shifted the Void-Bay frequency to allow you to walk out on the ramp." Ordis announced, truly proud of himself. "Please be careful."

-.-.-.-

Shepard really wanted to get up that elevator and over to the _Normandy_ and grab the shotgun she'd forgotten to give to Ashley, but there was so many _people _in the way. The whole area had been in lockdown for an hour, forcing the squad to go check up on Barla Von's leads first.

So, Fist had betrayed the Shadow Broker and now had one of the most dangerous Krogan bounty hunters in the galaxy coming for him. A Krogan that _just happened_ to be in the C-Sec Academy _right_ in front of the elevator _and_ getting arrested at the same time.

"I will kill Fist." the Krogan said adamantly. He wasn't going to budge and by the look of his scars, he was prepared to move asteroids to get the job done.

"I could arrest you just for saying that, you know."

The large red Krogan just laughed. "I'd like to see you try." He said challengingly before barging his way out of the conversation. Before he could get away, however, Shepard managed to get in his way.

"Hey, got a minute?"

"I have no quarrel with you, Human. What do you want?" the Krogan said, seemingly annoyed.

"Couldn't help but overhear you're going after Fist. I need some information from him before you kill him, though, and I can guarantee that by being with me you'll get into three times as many fights that are at least four times more fighty!" Shepard proposed, calling on the general Krogan stereotype of loving a good fight. It was something she could sorely relate to.

The Krogan stared at her. She did look kinda… enthusiastic about it. Wide-grinned and everything. He raised an eye-ridge. "Commander Shepard? I thought you'd be more…" he struggled to find the words he was looking for.

Kaidan found them for him. "I think you mean _less._"

"Ha! I'm Wrex. If you get into as much trouble as I hear you do, then this is gonna be fun."

"Welcome to the crew."

-.-.-.-

"Ordis? ORDIS!"

The Cephalon hadn't responded _once_ since she'd stepped out the Liset and behind a trio of armoured crates. Her black-and-grey-with-white-bits armour was almost blending into the crates. Apart from the white bits. Tessa didn't even know if she could recolour those bits.

Another burst of static came through on her Comms. "Goddamnit Ordis…" she muttered, keeping her crossbow trained on the lizard's blockade as she shimmied back up the ramp.

"Operator, I have discovered a problem."

Well that's not good.

"What is it, Ordis? And I thought you were calling me Tessa now," she added cheekily, smirking under her helmet.

A glowing blue datachip ejected from the main console. "Take this, and insert it into the slot at the base of your neck. It will be our only way to communicate while you are outside the Liset. There's something blocking all my known signal frequencies _and_ signal types. Void Communications isn't working either."

"So how does this one work?" Tessa asked, fiddling with the chip to get it in right.

"It's based on a small transmission signal sent via Rift. Only the transponder chips are actually in the Rift, however this allows for instantaneous communication regardless of location. You could be light-years away from the Liset and we could still be communicating in real time. _In theory, anyway._" Ordis explained. Thankfully his 'glitches' were less glaring now.

"Thanks, Ordis."

A small window popped up on the left of her HUD, Ordis' glowing-_ oh god, it's cracked…_- cuboid form the centrepiece. "It was my pleasure, Tessa. Now for a test of practical application."

-.-.-.-

"So…" Shepard started, sheepishly looking at the elevator guard. "I know nobody's allowed up there but I'm assigned to the ship docked right next to where that big incident is going down…" she rubbed the back of her head and tried to smile but it turned into half a grimace as she shrugged.

The Turian guard stared at her uncompromisingly.

"Is a Garrus Vakarian up there by any chance?"

The officer checked his omni-tool for a moment. "Yes, he is." But when he looked up, the three Humans and the Krogan were gone.

He turned around just in time to see the redhead that had asked about Vakarian waving at him as the elevator sped upwards.

"What."

-.-.-.-

"Hey Ordis?"

"Yes, Tessa?"

"We've been standing here… pointing guns at each other… for like ten minutes now. Can I at least wave or something?"

"If you wish to do so, then you may. I'm not stopping you."

"Well… I dunno…"

"Are you not waving because I haven't explicitly stated that I am in favour of waving?"

"…" she had no reply to that. At least she couldn't think of anything that wouldn't make herself sound like a fool.

"Tessa, you must learn to take action without consulting me first. Some situations you are simply going to need to react to rather than think through."

"I know… but you're the last friendly soul I know. Aaaaaaaand I can't speak English." Tessa squeaked out the last bit far too quickly for it to be not her own fault.

"Oh_ FOR GODS SAKE TESSA!-_ Have you not been practicing those lessons your mother gave you?"

"… no." Tessa replied meekly, lowering her gun sadly as she looked at her feet in shame.

"Don't feel bad. _You should be feeling terrible about this!-_ Oh I _really_ need to find out what's causing these glitches," Ordis scolded himself. "Tessa, put your gun away and walk slowly in front of the crates and say hello. Perhaps they understand Orokin."

Doing as she was told, Tessa put her Attica on her back, held her hands in the air in the "Don't shoot me I'm unarmed and a frikkin awesome Tenno ninja!" as she walked out into the open.

"Hello?!" she yelled, waving with one cautious hand. "Can you guys understand Orokin?"

The reply she got was enough to send her scrambling over the crates for cover as a dozen shots rang out and several found their marks, slamming into her shields with unprecedented velocity. "HOLY SHIT WHAT KIND OF GUNS ARE THESE LIZARDS USING?!"

"Interesting," Ordis commented.

"ORDIS, NOW IS NOT THE TIME!" Tessa shrieked and covered her head as rounds pinged off the crates she was hiding behind.

"Alert: an unknown creature is attempting to scan the Liset. Recommendation; destroy the scanning device. I am highlighting it on your HUD now."

Tessa peered out from behind the crate and looked at the marker. "Is that a gecko?" she asked, incredulous.

"Just shoot the glowing orange holographic device on his arm."

Emotions and panic aside, Tessa was glad that her training allowed her to near instinctually aim and fire in one smooth, delicate, totally badass, but most importantly _quick_ motion as she took a single step to the side, brought up her Attica, and launched a bolt across the platform.

The gunfire stopped as soon as her crossbow had gone _*styw*_, only for panicked screeching to begin as the gecko-thing was left impaled to a wall by his hand, the glowing orange hologram destroyed.

The lizards immediately started squawking in some unknown harsh language, their voices sounding a goddamn lot like _Corpus_.

Tessa immediately backed up, her Attica aimed at the one with what appeared to be a sniper rifle. It had a visible scope and a very long barrel, anyway.

-.-.-.-

"Saras… SOMEONE GET A MEDIC OVER HERE!"

"How the hell did that-"

"It punched right through his kinetic barrier like it wasn't even there!"

Garrus kept the unknown soldier- _at least that's what I think she is-_ in his sights. She seemed to be aiming for him so it wouldn't be a good idea to take his attention off her. The delay in the shot and the screaming told him he might have a chance to roll out the way- or more likely, get off a single retaliatory shot before his head became Vakarian-Kebab.

"BE QUIET!" another officer yelled, trying to bring order to the chaos. "Defensive positions, don't rely on your kinetic barriers because they obviously don't trigger against whatever it's shooting at us."

Finally, some advice that the friggin' new guys might actually listen to.

"Dibs on the helmet!"

_*styw*_

Or not.

The bolt impacted into the FNG's head, straight into his eye socket, getting stuck between there and a clean exit on the other side of his skull. The corpse was flung away, somersaulting head over heels before it hit the closed elevator doors with a very wet-sounding _*spurluck*_, leaving a large blue and grey stain.

Garrus ducked behind the crate, making sure _none _of his body parts were available to be aimed at. "Alright, next guy who tries to say something while in the killzone is going to get shot."

"What makes you think that, Garrus?" the Turian, whose name Garrus could never remember, next to him asked.

"She doesn't understand the language. For all she knows, 'dibs on the helmet' means 'attack formation bravo'."

The other guy did the Turian equivalent of raising an eyebrow. "And what makes you think it's a she?"

Garrus made a little cupping motion with his hands in front of his chest. The other Turian burst out laughing before the elevator doors opened.

-.-.-.-

One pissed off Shepard looked out the door and put a hand of her hip, pursed her lips, and looked to the heavens thoughtfully. "Considering how today has gone, what do you guys think my chances are that the Turian we're looking for is currently fondling his own non-existent breasts?" she said, _loudly._

The Turian in question immediately paled (a very rare thing for Turians to do) and hugged his sniper rifle a little bit closer.

"At least he has good technique," Ashley supplied. "For a Turian…"

Another C-Sec officer, baring a striking resemblance to the Executor, came marching over. "What- why are you four here?" he asked, wisely staying behind cover. "And get down!"

Shepard took a moment to collect her thoughts as she slid behind a crate, her squad heading to their own cover in various positions behind the crate wall. "We're here for Garrus," she explained. "Wanted to have a quick chat with him about his investigation into Saren."

The officer in charge looked at her. "I need everyone I've got here. You can't take him away until we've dealt with…" he peeked out for a glance at the enemy, "whatever that thing over there is."

Shepard nodded, thinking quickly. "What can you tell me about the situation?"

"It flew in fast enough to _dent_ the back wall. According to your pilot over there, it was dead in the water until about half an hour ago."

"So we're deal with an unknown that was propelled here under power that wasn't its own." Shepard had a hard time digesting that information. It must have been going _extremely_ fast to have dented the nigh un-damageable metal that the Citadel was made of. "What can you tell me about them?" she asked, nodding her head at the other end of the platform.

"According to a couple of officers, it's some kind of power-armoured female Humanoid with a crossbow that ignores kinetic barriers."

"If it's firing bolts then they probably don't move fast enough to trigger shields."

"Saras tried to scan the ship and got a bolt in the arm for it."

Shepard winced in sympathy. "Ouch. Any attempts at communication?"

"Yeah. Came out with her hands up, crossbow away, and shouted something. Four or five guys suddenly started firing at her. Probably weren't even paying attention, the bastards…" the officer growled. "It doesn't seem to react well to Turian voices. Last guy who stood up to yell 'dibs on the helmet' got a bolt in the eye for it."

"WHAT?!" Shepard yelled, unbelieving. A bolt in the _eye?!_ From this range?! With a _crossbow_?!

"It _is_ a nice helmet, though."

Shepard hit him in the forehead with the butt of her pistol.

-.-.-.-

Tessa remained behind the crates, resorting to scrolling through various lists and documents she'd saved onto her Warframe's memory drives. With her back propped up by the hard and very uncomfortable crates, the holo-projector disk on the floor between her legs, the interface in front of her, her situation was, in a word, _boring._

"Ordis…" she moaned, for the twelfth time, "I'm _bored_…"

"I'm afraid I cannot do anything about that, Tessa. Try walking over to say hello."

"Last time I did that they shot at me."

"That might have been on accident. I'm sure they've had time to get their act together since then."

"Fine…" Tessa groaned, picking up the disk and deactivating it.

She got up to sit on the crate, tense and cringing as she expected to get shot at again. When she didn't hear any gunfire, she opened her eyes and recoiled as the first thing she saw was a head of dark red hair sitting on top of a _very_ familiar Human face.

And that was how she fell off the crate.

-.-.-.-

"What?" Shepard jerked her head back as the female fell, flailing, off the crate and probably onto her head behind them. "Did she just-"

"Yep." Wrex chuckled. "Betcha two-hundred creds it's a Human under that suit."

"You're on," Kaidan said, rising to the challenge and slapping the Krogan Battlemaster's outstretched hand.

"Men…" Ashley muttered, earning a disapproving look from Garrus. "Hey! You were fondling yourself not five minutes ago!"

"…" Garrus had no reply to that.

"She's coming out again," Shepard called, bringing her crew's attention back to the situation where it belonged. Thank god there wasn't any alcohol in sight; they'd have all been fighting over it.

The female stepped out of cover again, hands lowered but not relaxed in the slightest as she seemed to peer at Shepard. Some unintelligible gibberish seemed to spew from her mouth in an unstoppable torrent as she took a few steps closer, causing a few of the officers, almost none of whom were Human, to raise their guns.

"Stand down!" their CO barked, making most of them look back to him in confusion. "We're letting Shepard handle this."

The Shepard in question looked back at him, surprised.

Her, along with almost every other person there yelled at the same time. "What?!"

-.-.-.-

"I don't think they like me."

"_You did shoot two of them._" Ordis replied in an annoyed tone.

"I know but that was self-defence! Retaliation! They shot first!"

"At least a couple of them are speaking English."

"But they're _Human._ Ordis, why are they _Human_?"

"I don't know but maybe you should ask them. _IF YOU'D BOTHERED TO LEARN ENGLISH!_"

"Oh shut up, Ordis…" Tessa sighed, slumping slightly. She sat down in a meditative position, trying to calm herself when she was suddenly startled by the entire group yelling something.

"… why me?" she heard. She could understand basic English, reading and listening, but the method in speaking and writing it was just so _alien_ compared to Orokin. She could never get it right.

The familiar redheaded one shook her head in what appeared to be exasperation or something as she vaulted over the crates and stopped in front of Tessa, sitting down cross-legged to join her.

"Hi. I'm Commander Kara-" she didn't get any further as Tessa lunged at her with the ferocity of a very, _very_ angry Charger.

-.-.-.-

When the alien warrior- _well she's got a gun and armour so it stands to reason she'd be whatever her species' soldier is-_ lunged at her, Shepard had clamped her eyelids shut and saw her life flash before her eyes. At least that was what she expected.

Instead she was stuck in a hug. Not the kind of bear-hug you'd use to pin your enemy, but a genuine hug. _Whaaaaaaaaaat is going on here…?_

She slowly became aware of how _close_ she was to the alien girl, especially when a voice whimpered right next to her. "_Mom_!"

"What."

-.-.-.-

Garrus saw the two anomalies _hugging_ of all things. The alien had taken her helmet off, revealing a _Human_ head of _bright pink hair_._ In pigtails._ "Please tell me I'm not the only one seeing this."

Kaidan grumbled and handed over a credit chit to Wrex, who was triumphantly doing his 'told you so' gloating routine. "Sucks to say that I see it too."

"How do you even get hair that pink? It can't be natural…" Ashley muttered under her breath, keeping the alien in her sights.

Garrus didn't know much about what he should be doing now, seeing as the situation had turned peaceful, but he did know the next step in First Contact scenarios near the Citadel. "Hey can we get an Asari or something down here?"

-.-.-.-

Elilia T'Morza had a pretty eventful day so far. Some terrified Volus had come to her thinking his workmate was out to kill him, and then she'd traced a strange signal in the between-elevators halls of the Wards to a bank… it felt like her day would _never_ end.

"Hey Elilia?" another C-Sec officer, one of the Human rookies, came rushing over to her.

Oh Goddess, please no, not now!

"Yes, Caleb?" Elilia answered, with very well disguised exhaustion, "What is it?"

Caleb did a quick sweep on the area, something that confused Elilia. Why would he need to do that? It must be a Human thing. She'd noticed that a lot of them tended to do that when they felt insecure about something.

"We need you up at the Systems Alliance docking bay; there's a bit of a situation-" he lowered his voice to the point where Elilia had to strain to hear him, "they're saying it might be a First Contact and we need an Asari up there ASAP."

Elilia was shocked, to say the least. "But- why me? How? Why an Asari, specifically?"

Caleb looked slightly guilty. "Sorry, you were the first Asari I could find. There's a language barrier, among other things, and…" Caleb blushed. "Well you've got a much more comforting face than most of the other Asari C-Sec," he said.

"Well… when you put it like that…" Elilia smiled warmly at his antics and shook her head. "Lead the way."

-.-.-.-

"Uhhh…" Shepard couldn't believe it herself. "I think you might have the wrong Commander… miss?"

The female didn't respond, other than hugging her even _tighter_. Shepard decided to hug back and try and comfort her instead of listening to reason and logic. But she _did _radio the squad for help. "Hey guys, any chance-"

"We've got an Asari 'translator' coming up to help right now." Garrus interrupted. "Anything you can do to keep that girl calm will help immensely. I've sent off the rest of the squad. We can handle it from here. Right?"

"So long as you don't start fondling yourself again, yeah, we can," Ashley all but growled.

"Are you _ever_ going to let me live that down?"

"Probably not."

Shepard ignored them as she stroked the pink hair. She didn't know if it was normal for daughters to nuzzle their mother's shoulders but she didn't want to start an interstellar incident over familial instincts that she didn't understand.

"Hey, umm, miss? Ma'am?" she tried, leaning away for a moment. The girl's eye's looked into Shepard's hopefully, and _goddamn_ they were the same shade as her hair. "Can you understand me?"

The girl nodded, finally letting Shepard out of the excruciatingly tight embrace. She said something that sounded a lot like the gibberish from before, and Shepard couldn't decipher it to save her life.

"Well… I can't understand you," Kara grimaced sadly. "But we're getting someone who can. I've been told it's, uhh, quite the experience."

-.-.-.-

The first thing she thought when she saw the ship was 'at least these new aliens have a sense of beauty.'

Then she saw the ragtag group made up of Humans, Krogan, and Turian and wondered what kind of madman thought they'd be able to work together very well.

"Ah, Elilia, perfect," a flanged voice greeted her from the front of the impromptu barrier.

"Garrus… I should have known you'd be caught up in this." Elilia smirked, walking over to him and shaking his hand. The Human gesture had become quite popular among the Citadel races. For those that could, they often would.

"Nice to know you've been thinking of me. We need you to meld with the girl over there," Garrus pointed to where a couple sat on the docking platform, oblivious to them.

"Isn't that Commander Shepard?" she asked, confused.

"Try the pink one on the other side," the Krogan suggested. His scarred crest reminded Elilia of someone…

"Wrex?"

"Yup."

She left it at that and made her way out to the Commander and the new alien.

-.-.-.-

"Blue?" the girl asked, dumbfounded, as she stared at the Asari maiden walking towards them.

"Yeah, she's an Asari. They're blue." Shepard confirmed. "She's going to meld minds with you-"

"Hello, Commander Shepard, I am Elilia T'Morza. I wasn't aware that we were making First Contact with Humanity again," Elilia said, eyeing up the girl.

"Blue…"

"Yeah, well she's alien, she thinks I'm her mom, and shit happened." Shepard grimaced. "She already shot a Turian officer in the eye with a crossbow so I'd appreciate it if we could get this over with as soon as we can."

"I understand." Elilia turned to face the girl, and then made the effort to speak in English for her- albeit with a noticeable accent- "Just clear your mind, and do your best to remain calm," she said, putting a hand on the girl's neck and touching their foreheads together. "_Embrace Eternity,_" she whispered.

-.-.-.-

Shepard watched, amused, as the two stood with their foreheads together. The new girl-_ I really need to find out her name-_ looked almost like she was about to drool on the floor.

"Does it usually take this long?" she asked after a full minute had passed. Everyone just swapped glances and shrugged. "Guess not then," she muttered, rolling her eyes.

"As much as I would like to stay until this is over," Garrus started, finally relaxing as the threat was over, "I still need to continue my investigation."

"I thought the Executor-"

"The Executor can shove it," Garrus whipped around to glare at Kaidan, who backed up innocently as he was interrupted. "If I'm using the human term correctly," he added as an afterthought.

"Yeah about that…" Shepard leaned against the railing, "I'm planning on exposing Saren too. And before you comically throw yourself on my feet screaming 'take me with youuuuu!' yeah, I'm dragging you along whether you like it or not." she smirked.

Garrus shrugged. "Fair enough."

Ashley was muttering something about "Too many damn aliens…" while Kaidan and Wrex were left to argue about whether or not pink-hair was actually Human. But, eventually, they all put their weapons away.

Shepard and Garrus stood next to each other, watching and waiting. "So why do _you_ wanna pin Saren?" Shepard asked, genuinely intrigued.

"Saren is rogue, a mass murderer, and probably wouldn't think twice about genocide just to stop a minor conflict," Garrus snorted in disgust. "He's an absolute disgrace to my people and _nobody _is going to do a damn thing about it!"

"What if you agreed with his view though? Or he was your commanding officer?" Shepard knew that 'I was just following orders' was more of a creed than an excuse for Turians. Following bad orders could be forgiven. Disobeying those same orders came with a social stigma that few were willing to accept.

"Then I obviously wouldn't be calling him a traitor to our species. I know what you're asking, Shepard." Garrus nudged his head at her, pointing.

"I have no idea what you're talking about…" Shepard tried too hard not to smile, and her excessively twitching lips betrayed this fact.

"Yes, Shepard, I do have a stronger sense of morals than I do loyalty."

"We all have to make unsavoury decisions. As long as you can promise me you'll follow orders regardless, we shouldn't have a problem."

Garrus' mandibles twitched in surprise. "I… see." he murmured, looking away.

"Aww c'mon, Vakarian, I've got a sense of morals too. How d'ya think I got to where I am with my blindly obvious unprofessionalism?" Shepard grinned, giving Garrus a light punch on the shoulder. "I'm not gonna ask you to nuke anyone or anything stupid like that. At least I hope not…" she added, thinking carefully.

"You're a groundside squad leader; do you even _have_ access to nukes?" Garrus asked pointedly.

Shepard shrugged. "Maybe."

The pair in front of the bonding soldiers finally moved, starting with pink-hair collapsing the moment the meld ended. "Uuhnnhhh…" she moaned, almost zombie-like as she stared at the ceiling.

"Finally finished, Elilia?" Garrus asked, stepping forward.

Elilia swayed on the spot for a moment, lightly touching the side of her head. "Yes… how long were we out?" she asked, concerned.

Shepard checked her omni-tool. "Almost five minutes. I thought learning languages would go a bit quick-"

"No. There was _much_ more discussed than just language," Elilia told her, almost in a commanding voice. "Tessa is dangerous in ways you cannot imagine." she said, quite sternly.

"Okay…" Shepard nodded slowly, "But what about the bit where she thinks I'm her mom?"

"Mistaken identity. Though I must say you two are _very_ alike." Elilia almost chuckled. "But this is a heavily isolated incident. Unless her kind sends a search party, which is highly unlikely, even more so by the second, then Tessa is the only Tenno in known space. Possibly even the entire galaxy."

Garrus shook his head. "This just keeps getting weirder and weirder."

"Tell me about it," Shepard groaned. "So what do we do with her? If she's as dangerous as you say, we can't simply let her roam around on the Citadel." she gestured to the ship hovering at the end of the ramp-_ why didn't I go check that out while I had the chance?-_ "And what are we going to do about _that?_"

Elila shrugged. "I do not know. Perhaps it would be best to take her with you. We can impound the ship and keep it away from prying eyes but we cannot do the same for a sentient being who is not at fault for the problems she has caused. Though… nevermind. He will be missed."

Shepard glanced at Garrus. "Who'll be missed?" she whispered.

Garrus did his best to mimic the late officer, "_Dibs on the helmet_," he said.

"I can't believe it," Tessa muttered from her position on the floor. "Talking jellyfish."

Shepard couldn't help herself as she burst into unrestrained laughter. First Contact with a new species and the first thing she comments on is the _Hanar_.

-.-.-.-

The roof was interesting, but digesting the torrent of information had left her boggled. Hanar, Volus, Elcor, Asari, Salarians, Turians, Drell, _Humans_.

Sprawled out as she was, all she had to do was turn her head to stare at not-Mom who was laughing her socks off. The lizard-man- _no, Turian_- was shaking his head with a most decidedly 'annoyed' look, if she was getting the alien's expression right. She probably wasn't.

"Hey…" she slurred, her mouth and vocal chords still adjusting to the formerly foreign language, "Whayt're you laughing at?"

The Turian and Asari stopped conversing long enough for Elilia to crouch down and help her sit up. "Don't worry, Tessa, but I have to go." Tessa didn't realise how alarmed her expression must have been for the Asari to suddenly look guilty. "I promise, your secrets are safe with me," Elilia reassured her, embracing Tessa. "I'm going to leave you with Shepard and Garrus. Just keep your helmet on at all times when you're on the Citadel, okay?"

Tessa nodded, bringing her helmet up. The Turian seemed rather shocked by the way it folded out without catching her pigtails in it. "If anyone asks, it's just an experimental set of armour," she recited, "Don't draw unnecessary attention to myself, and Garrus and Shepard will take care of me."

Elilia smiled, giving her a final hug. "Good girl. Be safe," she said, leaving Tessa sitting cross-legged on the floor before turning to the soldiers. "And if you two _don't_ take care of her and guide her…" she left the threat unspoken as she walked away. Tessa smiled when Elilia started ordering the other three to reorganise the impromptu barrier back to where the crates belonged.

-.-.-.-

Shepard couldn't believe it herself. "So you're Tessa?"

Tessa nodded. "Sorry about shooting the gecko and the other guy," she said, suspiciously less guiltily that Shepard would have expected. She even called the Salarian a _gecko_, which she found slightly amusing.

"You a soldier of some sort?" she asked evenly, not really liking that she already knew the answer. _And she's so young, too._

"I am Tenno. We are warriors of gun and blade. It is our sworn duty to maintain balance across the Origin System." Tessa said it so mechanically that Shepard couldn't help but wonder if she'd been brainwashed into it.

"How'd you get to be a Tenno?"

Tessa looked at her, frowning. Shepard immediately realised how she knew that, and didn't like the answer. _She's been in that suit for so long_… _her body language is almost impossible to miss._

"I was born. I'm actually one of the youngest Tenno alive," she remarked, tilting her head. "One of seven born in the last fifty years since the Cryosleep officially ended."

Garrus looked _very_ surprised at that. "How long do Tenno usually live?" he asked.

Tessa appeared to wince as Garrus spoke. "Depends. Nobody actually knows, really. Unless you count a destroyed Cryopod, none of us have ever died in our sleep or of old age."

Shepard thought about it. Tessa was quite literally bred to be a warrior. "Hold old are you? Uh, if you don't mind me asking."

"Hmm twenty… seven? Twenty five?"

"Impossible!" Garrus exclaimed, pointing at her harshly. "You can't be older than thirteen!"

"I'm only twenty nine so that's a bonus point towards me _not_ being her mother…" Shepard muttered under her breath.

Tessa shrugged. "If you say so… I did spend almost twelve years of my life since birth training. Two months with my mother to see if I would actually live, and then I was stuck in a statis pod to grow and stuff."

"And stuff?" Shepard repeated dully. "You spent twelve years of your life alone in a pod growing _and stuff?_"

"I don't know! I remember being in a simulator training or something. I wasn't old enough to talk Orokin yet, let alone have a say in how I was raised." Tessa looked down, playing with a flake of metal she found by her feet. "I… never really had a childhood or anything. I know I've spent the last decade out on missions or checking around trying to contact mom again. Doing whatever missions Lotus sends us."

"I think we can save the talk for later," Garrus suggested, noting that the others had finally finished grumbling about putting the crates back.

"Good thinking, Garrus. Okay then, Tessa, what's your combat specialty?" Shepard asked, signalling the others to get their collective asses over here.

"Crowd control, assassination, infiltration, indiscriminate local genocide." Tessa listed, counting each one on her fingers.

Shepard stopped at stared. "What."

Tessa started giggling. "You should see your face!" she squealed, laughing. When she finally calmed herself down, she gave Shepard a serious answer. "I'm good at crowd control, ninja stuff, and I'm reasonably OK at stealth. I think." she shrugged. "Probably."

Shepard tapped Garrus' shoulder, getting his attention. "We're gonna head down to Chora's Den to confront Fist. I have to bring Wrex because Fist is his current target. Any suggestions on everyone else?"

Garrus was surprised that Shepard would just ask for his consultation like that. "Well… considering what kind of establishment Chora's Den is, I'm not sure you'd want to bring Tessa. I'm happy to come along. If it weren't for Tessa's arrival I would have been investigating a lead at Doctor Michel's clinic down in the Wards. I'd still like to go there but if you're heading straight for Fist to kill him I'd rather not miss it."

Shepard nodded. "Ashley, Kaidan, you two take Tessa here and head to that med store in the Wards. Wrex, Garrus, and I are gonna go take out Fist. Got it?"

Several heads and one owl-faced helmet nodded.

"Meet at the Presdium in an hour or so. Move out!" Shepard ordered, jogging towards the elevator, Garrus and Wrex hot on her heels.

-.-.-.-

Kaidan glanced at Ashley and Tessa, who'd put her crossbow back in her creepy ship. "You're Tessa?" he asked, just to make sure.

"Uh-huh."

The three of them started walking down the dock to the newly-returned elevator, Tessa in the middle. Kaidan couldn't fathom what kind of tune she was humming but it was quite soothing, in his opinion.

The elevator ride was awkward and quiet.

"So…" Kaidan started, desperate to break the ice, "Are you even Human?" he asked.

"Nope. I'm Tenno." Tessa replied, rocking on her heels. "So I guess technically I _am_ Human, but… I'm not anymore. It's complicated."

"Damn," Kaidan chuckled. "So if a bet were made on you being Human…"

Tessa visibly scowled at him, despite her helmet. "Whoever bet on not-Human would win."

Ashley shot him an appalled look. "You bet on her _species_?!"

"He wouldn't have asked if he didn't. At least, not if he'd won." Tessa said matter-of-factly. "So, Dad, how much does the dinofrog owe you?"

-.-.-.-

"_Shitshitshitshitshit-_"

"Shepard's hit!" Garrus yelled, moving to her cover and applying a large dose of Medigel from her reserves sloppily.

"I can see that!" Wrex yelled, charging through hired thugs, wreathed in his biotics. What few hostiles remained were quickly pummelled to death or had their head blown off by Wrex's shotgun.

"Clear!" Garrus called, applying Medigel more carefully now.

"All you C-Sec are the same," Wrex grumbled, lumbering back to where Shepard was crouched behind the counter with a bullet in her gut.

"Shepard, how many fingers am I holding up?"

"Twelve," was her immediate response before even bothering to open her eyes. "Two?"

Garrus sighed, helping her up once the Medigel had taken effect. "We're going to need you to get looked over by a doctor or something next chance we get, make sure you didn't lose anything vital."

"Thanks for the concern, Garrus," Shepard winced and clutched her midsection, stumbling for a moment, "But I think I'll be fine. Unh, well y'know for a few more hours at least." she paused, looking around. "Where's Wrex?"

A couple of almighty _*thunk*_s could be heard from down the hall. "Nevermind…" Shepard groaned, hobbling a few steps before getting her gait right and jogging towards their Krogan merc. She hit Wrex's arm when she saw the two bodies on the ground. "What the hell, Wrex?!"

"They pointed guns at me." he grunted. "But they weren't Fist's goons so I taught 'em not to point guns at Krogan."

Shepard sighed and placed a hand on her forehead. "Just… urgh just so long as you don't go around killing-"

"Shepard, I'm over nine hundred years old and probably the only Krogan you'll ever meet who knows when _not_ to start a fight. I can actually handle myself, you know."

"Yeah… okay. Fine. Let's go get Fist," she sighed, defeated. "C'mon Garrus. We don't want to miss the execution, now, do we?"

-.-.-.-

Tessa grinned under her helmet. He really truly did look like her father. Even acted a bit like him with some things. He even had the same name!

So while she was busy looking around the Wards and staring at aliens, her two squadmates were bickering about Kaidan and Shepard's relationship.

"I'm telling you, I'm not her father!"

"How long have you been sleeping with the Commander, Kaidan?" Ashley demanded, walking into the clinic.

"For god's sake, Ashley, I've-"

"What the hell?!" one of the thugs exclaimed, pulling the doctor into a headlock and putting his pistol up against her temple. "Nobody moves or the doctor gets it!"

"-never even-"

"Hey guys?" Tessa grabbed their hands and started shaking them about roughly. Since they ignored that, she forced their hands together and wrapped them around each other, holding them there.

"And now you're-"

"HEY!" the lead thug yelled, switching targets to shoot at Ashley's face.

Tessa used this moment of distract to launch herself into a cartwheel and kick the gun out of his hands, pick it up, and shoot him in the forehead the instant she was on her feet again. The gunshot rang out loud enough for Kaidan and Ashley to _finally_ realise they were at their destination, _holding hands_, and were in a firefight all at once.

"Tessa!" Kaidan yelled angrily, separating himself from the Gunnery Chief. "What the hell?!"

Tessa smirked from her position behind the counter, taking pot shots at the thugs while Ashley bodily dragged the poor doctor to some cover. "You guys _literally _walked into this."

Ashley frowned at the doctor. "Really?"

Dr. Michel nodded, speaking with a thick accent, "You would have been shot if it weren't for this girl."

Kaidan growled in frustration, shooting the fire extinguisher. The sudden blast knocked everyone off their feet, but more importantly, stunned the thugs long enough for Tessa to run over and shoot them point blank.

When it was finally over, they gathered at the back of the shop, not looking at all like they'd just walked into a hostage situation. Tessa sat on one of the bed-benches, swinging back and forth. "You okay, doc?" she asked.

"I'm fine, thank you for saving me."

"It's ok. Look, I even got a new gun!" Tessa proudly held up the stolen pistol. And the small pile of weapons next to her.

"Yeah…" Kaidan rubbed his chin, wondering if the Commander had to deal with anything like this before.

"Why were those thugs here?" Ashley asked, keeping her assault rifle out. She didn't want to be caught by surprise again.

"They wanted to keep me quiet, to stop me from telling C-Sec about the Quarian. She came in here, injured. I helped her, and she asked where she could find the Shadow Broker, something about wanting to trade information on Saren for sanctuary." the doctor explained. "I directed her to talk with Fist, but that was before I found out Fist had betrayed the Shadow Broker!"

Kaidan grunted thoughtfully. "Shepard's already gone to confront Fist…" he said, holding a hand up to his earpiece to switch channels. "Hey Shepard, have you killed Fist yet? Good, ask him about the Quarian before you do. Doc here says she came in looking to trade Intel on Saren for sanctuary. No, we haven't got any more than that, sorry. Alright. I'll use the budget we got from the Turians for it. Kaidan out."

"So how'd it go with you and Mom?" Tessa asked, swinging her legs innocently.

Kaidan groaned and resisted the immense urge to facepalm. "We're going weapons shopping and gathering supplies. Shepard's confident she can nail Saren and when she does, we're going to be either chasing him or on the front lines holding back Geth whenever he shows his ugly mug, so we'd better be prepared."

"Yay! Birthday shopping!"

"NO."

-.-.-.-

"'kay. Wrex, he's all yours." Shepard turned around and was walking out by the time Wrex pulled the trigger and painted the rather nice wall with Fist's guts and other various inside things.

"Are you sure we should have just executed an unarmed prisoner like that?" Garrus asked, falling into step beside her.

"No, we shouldn't of, but Wrex probably woulda done it anyway. The Wards are probably going to be a better place without him, at least." Shepard replied, walking around the corner and quickly looting a foolishly unlocked weapons locker. "Cool! Edge II pistol for me… hey Wrex! C'mere! Found a shotgun for ya!"

"Should we really be looting this stuff? That's kind of illegal." Garrus reminded her, although he did appreciate the Reaper II sniper rifle he was given.

"Meh. We killed a bunch of guys but they LOOK OUT!" she yelled, ducking behind the corner as several rounds bounced off her shield and chipped away at the wall she hid behind.

-.-.-.-

"Shepard to Kaidan, come in, Kaidan!"

Kaidan tapped Ashley's shoulder to let her deal with the Volus shopkeeper while he dealt with Shepard. "This is Kaidan. Go ahead, Commander."

"The Quarian's- _oof_- in the alleyways near the Markets. Fist set her up and- _Goddamnit Wrex!-_ We're pinned down!" Shepard yelled in his ear, gunfire clearly in the background. "You need to-"

"On it," Kaidan told her, pulling out his pistol.

"Better hurry, Lieutenant!" Shepard answered, cutting the comms.

Kaidan motioned for Ashley to hurry up as he grabbed Tessa and moved to the doors. "We've got a Quarian that needs saving, so watch your fire."

"Quarians are purple, right, Dad?" Tessa asked, pulling out her own pistol. It was the only one she'd kept; she'd let Ashley sell the rest to one of the dealers back in the markets.

"I'm not your father, and no, I don't think they are. They're the ones in the enviro-suits for their entire life." Kaidan replied as Ashley caught up.

"What-"

"Saving a Quarian cos Mom's pinned down." Tessa answered as the trio rushed down the halls to their objective. As soon as they caught sight of the group of soldiers surrounding the Quarian, Tessa sped off.

"Where the heck did she go?" Kaidan muttered to himself, looking into the shadows where his 'daughter' had just vanished.

-.-.-.-

"Deal's off. Tell the Shadow Broker he can meet me in person if he wants-"

"The Shadow Broker _never_ meets anyone in person, dear. _Take her out!_" the Turian ordered, raising his shotgun one-handed and pulling the trigger. He heard a whirring sound, wondering why his weapon wasn't firing.

Then his arm fell off.

-.-.-.-

Tali'Zorah nar Rayya threw the tech grenade and dashed for cover. _These shipping crates are awfully strong_.

She ducked instinctually as shots started flying, but before she could pull out her shotgun her helmet collided with something.

"Hey!" a very _young_ female human's voice piped up, coming from a flickering, _smoking_, shadow. A rather Humanoid shadow that was rubbing its head in annoyance.

So Tali screamed and shot her.

-.-.-.-

"All hostiles down!" Ashley reported, waiting for her sniper rifle to cool before putting it away. More shotgun blasts could be heard, along with screaming and yelling, from the alcove the Quarian had taken residence in.

"I don't even want to know." Kaidan grumbled, covering his eyes and trying to calm himself. Dealing with Tessa had been giving him some much worse headaches than usual.

"I'll go deal with them…" Ashley said, not waiting.

"WHAT ARE YOU?!"

"HUMAN!"

"DON'T!" Shotgun blast. "BOSH'TETING!" Another shotgun blast. "LIE!" And yet another shotgun blast. Ashley was going to need to ask this Quarian what kind of heat sink upgrades she had on her gun. "TO!"

"She's telling the truth." Ashley called, stalling the murder of Shepard's newest extra-galactic recruit.

"What?" the Quarian looked at her in surprise.

"It's a long story. You have intel on Saren?"

The Quarian backpedalled, pointing her shotgun at Ashley now. "Why?"

"We need it to expose Saren for what he is. Also, that girl you're trying to murder is our ally."

Tessa groaned from the corner, her form easily visible, and worryingly marked with red patches. "I'm…" she coughed, opening the bottom of her helmet for a moment to let out blood. "I'll be fine…"

Ashley didn't believe her, but she didn't exactly trust her either, not after that stunt with forcing her to hold hands with the LT. "Really?"

"Hnnn maaayybe."

Ashley glared at the Quarian.

"I'm sorry!"

-.-.-.-

It'd taken a while, but eventually the group found each other up at the Presidium, lounging around in the Diplomat's Bar. Ashley, Kaidan, the Quarian, and Tessa had managed to snag the couches in the corner on the main balcony, and were simply lying about waiting for the Commander to get back.

"Let me get this straight," Kaidan leaned forward, watching Tessa carefully, "You tanked _how many_ shotgun blasts to the chest?"

Tessa winced, her wounds still healing. "I think it was something close to too many." she groaned, gingerly shifting position on the couch she was on. "At least I got my Glaive back…"

Kaidan sighed, turning to face the Quarian, "Do you know how many times you shot her, miss..?"

"Tali. Tali'Zorah nar Rayya."

"Tali, do you know how many times you shot her?" the lieutenant asked again as Ashley returned with drinks and a Medigel pack.

Tali seemed to shrink under the gaze of the two Alliance soldiers. "Well… around twelve times? I'm really sorry about it," she said.

"Uhn, don't worry. I'll heal." Tessa waved off the apology. "How much longer 'till Mom gets here?" she asked, not really expecting an answer.

"How long are you gonna keep this up?" Ashley asked, smirking at Kaidan's aggrieved expression.

"Until they get together and gimmie a sister. Or brother." Tessa giggled quietly.

"NO." Kaidan ordered, "No more!"

Tali raised a hand, about to say something, when Kaidan sent a death-glare at her, quickly preventing her from thinking of doing anything for the next ten minutes other than sit down, shut up, and wait for the Commander.

Tessa's odd armour gained a few cursory glances, as did the numerous spots of blood on it, though the fact that Kaidan had made sure that Ashley left her assault rifle on the table in clear view kept the gazes from being any more than momentary glances. "Has anybody got any spare nanites?" Tessa asked sleepily, finally relaxing in this strange place. Possibly because of blood loss.

Ashley and Kaidan shared a worried look as Tali spoke up. "I think nanites are illegal tech…"

"Most definitely," Ashley agreed, nodding vigorously. "Let's just keep this quiet until we get back to the _Normandy_."

Kaidan almost agreed with her before he thought about what she said. "Wait- are you sure we'll be taking them on the _Normandy_?"

"The Commander's easily going to be recruiting them for whatever it is we'll be doing. Probably fighting off waves of Geth whenever they make an appearance." Ashley shrugged. "You know she's going to try hunt down Saren whether he's sprung or not."

"Yeah…" Kaidan muttered, leaning back in his seat. "Is she dead?" he asked, nodding towards Tessa, who'd stopped moving entirely. It didn't even look like she was breathing.

"I'm ded," Tessa confirmed, "deeeeeeeaaaaaaaad!" she moaned like a zombie, holding out her arms and making various un-dead noises.

Tali leaned away, itching to grab her shotgun and shoot the girl again. "Please, don't," she whimpered as Tessa grumbled something about eating brains.

Thankfully the scene was interrupted by a small commotion at the bar entrance. Unfortunately, that was where the Commander was…

-.-.-.-

"Whaddaya mean I can't bring Wrex in here?" Shepard asked, supremely _pissed_.

"I don't want any trouble, and everyone knows that Krogan cause trouble!" the guy at the door told her sternly.

"I like him." Wrex chuckled. "Don't worry about me, Shepard." he said, shuffling away. "I'll collect the bounty and meet you back here in half an hour."

Shepard_ really_ didn't like how Wrex was acting. Mostly going against her orders- or better yet going off to do his own thing and not even checking it with her first. She folded her arms and huffed in annoyance.

"Well that went smoother than expected," Garrus quipped, earning a death-glare from Shepard. "What? It did!"

Shepard grunted and barged her way past the idiot who'd tried to stop her. She scanned the room, looking for the tell-tale signs of _oh god,_ _why_…

"Hey Commander," Kaidan greeted her tiredly, while Ashley snapped off a salute.

"I told you to get the Quarian…" Shepard seethed, Garrus wisely staying quiet as he moved to check on Tessa, "So _what the fuck happened?!_" she all but screamed at them. Before anyone could explain, Anderson arrived. _I bet Kaidan's thanking his lucky stars the Captain's here…_

Anderson took one look at them and raised an eyebrow before shaking his head. "I'm not even going to ask. Come on, we can discuss this in the embassy," he said, grabbing Shepard's shoulder in an attempt to get her to calm down.

"If Udina's in there and decides to be a smartass, I'm going to punch him." Shepard promised.

-.-.-.-

"Remind me never to annoy you," Garrus said, eyeing the Ambassador lying on the floor. "How Anderson ever survived being assigned to the same ship as you- I'll never know."

Anderson sighed and rubbed his forehead. "If I'm honest, I was expecting that to happen a lot sooner. Now if we could just get back to work," he suggested, gesturing to Tali.

"Uh…" Tali hesitated just long enough for Tessa to shove her into the spotlight. The Quarian glared at the girl leaning on Garrus from beneath her visor. "I've managed to salvage an audio log from a Geth memory core-"

"I thought Geth destroyed their memory cores when they died." Anderson interrupted, frowning.

"If you're quick, lucky, and know what you're doing, small caches of data can be saved. Just listen to this!" Tali responded indigently, holding up her omni-tool to replay the recording.

Anderson leaned over to Garrus, whispering quietly, "It helps if you're on the same side and share her sense of humour," he advised, before the two started listening to the all-important evidence.

"_Eden Prime was a major victory. The beacon has brought us one step closer to finding the Conduit."_

"We've got the bastard now!" Shepard yelled triumphantly, punching the air.

"He wasn't working alone," Tali said, continuing the recording.

"_And one step closer to the return of the Reapers."_ continued a female voice.

Shepard visibly deflated. "Dang…"

"We have to present this to the Council as soon as we can," Anderson said decidedly. "The quicker he's taken down the safer our colonies will be."

"I think you mean 'the safer the galaxy will be', Anderson," Shepard replied, grinning. "That bastard going _down_!"

-.-.-.-

Ashley and Kaidan once again had babysitter duty as the Commander and Anderson took Garrus and Tali to present the evidence to the Council. Shepard had been very insistent about reminding them that nobody had Wrex's contact details yet.

At least they got to wait in a bar.

Tessa was ignoring the other two as they talked, instead trying to meditate. If she could calm her body down a bit, she might be able to accelerate the healing process. _This isn't working very well…_

She was surrounded by an alien space station that looked fit for permanent residence. She was surrounded by aliens. There were funny drinks that glowed in different colours (sometimes there were drinks that glowed in _several _colours) and exotic foods and so much _stuff!_ She'd never seen a Dojo as… metropolis-y as the Citadel in her life. Nature stuff and high tech spacestation corridors and buildings and statues…

With nothing else to do, Tessa watched the bar's entrance, waiting for Wrex the dinofrog- _Krogan. He's a Krogan. They just _look_ like dinofrogs is all._

It didn't take long. Kaidan was off going to the toilet or something, and Ashley was getting more drinks when Wrex arrived. He didn't go into the bar far enough to aggravate that weirdo from last time, but far enough to make himself highly visible to the people he was supposed to be meeting.

Tessa got up and dashed over to him, ignoring the funny glances she got. "Hi, Wrex!" she greeted the Krogan, smiling and waving. "What was the bounty?"

Wrex checked his omni-tool before replying. "About thirty thousand credits."

"What _is_ that?" Tessa asked, pointing to the glowing orange interface, intrigued.

The old Krogan merc raised an eye-ridge. "An omni-tool. I guess if you're gonna be staying here we should get you one," he suggested, nodding towards the outside world. "C'mon, my budget's likely a whole lot bigger than Shepard's," he chuckled.

Tessa wore a grin that was too big for her face and it showed. "Yes!" she pumped her fist in the air, "New stuff!"

-.-.-.-

Kaidan got back to their table to see only Ashley there, calmly sipping her Eden Prime Paradise.

"… She's not with you?" Ashley asked, concerned when the Lieutenant hadn't moved from standing in front of their table for the last three minutes.

Kaidan never answered her, simply standing there, deeply breathing slowly. Ashley finished her drink before getting up and grabbing her gun.

"How much trouble can one little girl get into?" Ashley asked, confident that the answer was 'not too much'.

"Don't tempt fate, Ashley. It only brings bad fortune." Kaidan whispered, following her.

-.-.-.-

"Wazzat?"

"Elcor."

"What abo-"

"Hanar."

"Why does-"

"_That_ is Blasto. It's a movie series about a Hanar with as many guns as you have questions."

"Huh. So is that norm-"

"Hanar aren't strong enough to hold guns, let alone fire them." Wrex was beginning to wonder what the hell he was thinking when he'd offered to take the alien girl shopping.

Tessa paused in front of a display in the Presidium's shopping corner. "Hmm… what's a 'manufacturer'?" she asked, pointing at one of the more common ones.

Wrex was surprised at that. "A manufacturer is a mass-producer of products. There's weapons manufacturers, armour manufacturers, furniture manufacturers… if stuff has a big enough demand then there's probably a manufacturer out there trying to sate that demand by producing the biggest supply," he explained, becoming more and more curious about Tessa's world with every seemingly simple question she asked.

She was a warrior of the highest calibre, according to Shepard, and yet she was so _childish_, with a massive lack of discipline and no idea whatsoever of manufacturers and many other things he took knowledge of for granted.

He was about to suggest they go to the Wards for some better, and definitely more _illegal_ deals, when the large Blasto display suddenly changed. "Huh." Wrex grunted, recognising the Citadel Tower and Council Chambers, and most importantly, Shepard.

The loudspeakers gathered the attention of all who weren't already watching. "Shepard, please step forward."

Wrex felt something climbing on his back, and was ready to chuck it off when he noticed Tessa was no longer in front of him. He looked up and saw a flash of bone-white fingers gripping his armour. He chuckled. She definitely had no discipline.

Climbing on your allies was right next to friendly-fire on the "Not To-Do" list.

-.-.-.-

"Congratulations on making Spectre, Shepard," Garrus said when the esteemed Commander had re-joined the group. Udina's black eye was just starting to show so he wisely refrained from saying anything lest the Commander deck him again. And this time, for her at least, _it would be fully legal._

"Thanks," Shepard smiled, quite proud of herself. "But I certainly didn't get this far on my own. If I want to take down Saren once and for all I'm going to need a ship and a crew I can count on," she said, planning her moves already. She glanced at Tali and Garrus again. "You two wanna come with?" she asked.

Garrus' mouth fell open in shock. "You- what- of course I do!" he exclaimed.

"Me too!" Tali stated, clumsily giving a salute which had the Commander trying _very_ hard not to snicker at.

"Wait- what about your Pilgrimage?" Shepard asked, suddenly coming to the realisation that her potential crew had _lives outside of hers_. "Isn't that-"

"It can wait. I would rather make sure I have a Flotilla to return to than find a gift," Tali shot down her new Commander's worries with startling accuracy.

"Alright then. I know the Ashley and Kaidan are with me- I probably couldn't leave them behind if I tried." Shepard mulled it over, rubbing her chin in thought. "I might have to ask Tessa and Wrex though."

Udina and Anderson had been quietly conversing over by the cherry tree while Shepard was doing her thing. And as usual, her plans went very well up until they came across that _one, vital thing_ that was a passive detail of the overall picture.

How the hell was she supposed to afford her own ship?

-.-.-.-

"Hey Kaidan, good news," Ashley said, reading the message she'd just got from Humanity's First Spectre. A quick glance at the Lieutenant told her that the poor, tormented man wasn't listening. "KAIDAN!" she yelled, hitting his shoulder.

"Hm?"

"Anderson's giving Shepard the _Normandy_. We're staying on her while we hunt down Saren." she told him, glaring at him the entire time to make sure he listened. "What's up with you anyway?"

"I…" Kaidan looked at her like a sad puppy and Ashley used all her inner discipline not to freak out and cuddle him.

"Maybe you should go see doctor Chakwas. I can find the aliens and meet you back at the ship," Ashley suggested, looking concerned.

Kaidan took a deep breath, holding it for a moment. "Yeah. Okay. I'll see you back at the _Normandy_." he said lightly, before slowly wandering in what Ashley could guess was _vaguely_ the right direction.

-.-.-.-

"What's the _Normandy_ like?" Tessa asked as she scrolled through a list of ammunition mods on the datapad that same Salarian she and Ashley had sold a pile of guns too earlier.

"Dunno."

"It looks like it'd be a bit more spacious than my Liset," she commented idly. "Phasic?"

The Salarian nodded. "Partially bypass kinetic barriers."

"Cool." Tessa continued scrolling until she found one she liked the look of. "High explosive rounds? How high explosive are we talking here?"

"Morlan does not have access to a firing range. If you wish to test it, any reparations are on your hands," the Salarian shopkeep said nervously, wringing his hands in that way that _really_ creeped Tessa out.

"Hey Wrex, can I shoot you?" Tessa innocently called to the merc on the other side of the room. She seemed to get a positive grunt in reply but at the same time he was busy… "How do I even use this thing?"

"Morlan can demonstrate!" the third-person geckoman swiped the pistol from Tessa's slack grip, ejected the ammo block, unfolded the modifier, clipped it in place, and had the whole thing reassembled and back in her hands before she even realised what'd happened.

"Wuh?" she stared at him dumbly.

"The mod clips onto the ammo block. All weapons use ammo blocks of varying sizes and all ammunition modifiers can adapt to attach to every ammo block within standard conventions. Morlan recognises this as a good business plan."

"Right…" Tessa repeated the information in her head as she took aim at Wrex's slowly approaching form. Two shots impacted on his shields, with _very_ noticeable blasts; almost enough to knock him on his ass. "Huh. I thought it woulda been bigger."

"Explosives relative to basic shot power. Assault rifle explosions smaller, then pistols," Morlan nodded to Tessa's weapon, "Shotguns have a larger combined explosion, although individual explosions smaller than that of a pistol's. Sniper rifles comparable to mini-RPGs in terms of strength. And of course, better quality modifiers make for more powerful explosions."

"How much for this one?" Tessa asked, holding up her pistol.

"Two thousand seven hundred and eight credits." Morlan replied, sensing a deal to be made.

"I'll give you two thousand five hundred."

"Deal."

"Wrex, can I borrow two and half thousand credits? I'll pay you back for this one, I swear!"

Wrex grumbled something darkly about friendly fire but paid for the mod. "You better. This-" he stopped himself when he saw what he'd bought. He snatched the datapad with the available items from Tessa and scrolled through to the ammo mods. "I want three of these and two of those." he ordered, pointing to the items.

Morlan almost _giggled_ as he wrung his hands again and nodded.

"And one of those and that one and… these three."

"A total of twelve thousand four hundred and nineteen credits. Morlan will do you a deal; the entire purchase for only twelve thousand!" the merchant gleefully announced as he packaged Wrex's new gear. "You two are the best customers Morlan has had the pleasure of serving in years!"

"Awesome…" Tessa was still put off by the way Morlan kept wringing his hands. The last guy she'd seen act like that had been a Corpus trying to experiment on cannibalising Warframes.

"Morlan will even throw in the duffle bag for free!"

-.-.-.-

"Anderson… _why_?" Shepard asked, unimaginably sad at the fact she had to take the Captain's ship from under him.

"She's quick, she's quiet, and she's one of the best ships in the fleet. It's the perfect vessel for a Spectre." Anderson told her proudly. "As much as I hate getting promoted to a desk job, I _know_ chasing down Saren is more important."

Shepard was about to hug her dear old friend, but stopped when the Lieutenant got in the way. "Kaidan?"

The man looked at her with a dazed expression. "Hey Commander. Hey Captain." he said, nodded to them before wandering down the ramp and into the _Normandy_'s airlock.

"…" Shepard really, _really_ wanted to yell some vulgarities at the Sentinel right now. "Kaidan," she began, slowly, "Where's the rest of the squad?"

"Dunno."

"YOU-"

-.-.-.-

Chellick heard a lot of things from his C-Sec office. Angry screaming was nothing new.

But this loudly? He hadn't heard _that_ since… well, never, actually.

Oh well, that's his one out-of-the-ordinary thing for today done; it was almost time for him to go check up on Jenna.

-.-.-.-

"Hmm… you've never had an omni-tool before?" the Turian technician asked, looking rather confuddled. His little corner of the market was a bit too 'out-of-the-way' to get as many visitors, let alone customers.

"No…" Tessa wasn't sure what story she could make up without heightening the suspicion on her already.

"You musta been on one of those isolation colonies, then." the Turian remarked, grabbing a small bracelet-type band from behind him. "I'll give you this one for free. It's the most basic omni-tool there is and it's almost a mandatory piece of equipment in Citadel space. Or anyone who _knows_ about Citadel space, now that I think about it."

"So what's it do?" Tessa asked, leaning on the counter. Wrex had wandered off to do a couple more deals a few minutes ago, leaving Tessa feeling slightly lonely.

"Well, it's an omni-tool. It's basically got every function a standard computer terminal has, but with the addition of a micro-fabricator and Medigel dispenser," the shopkeep explained. "It can act as a translator, and with the right programs it can even be used to throw snap-freezing ice bombs, if you're a combat techie."

Tessa didn't like hearing about the translator function. "How does the translator work?"

"It takes a few hours to kick in, but by reading your brain signals it can alter the stimuli. I'm speaking English right now, but if you had an omni-tool with a working translator function, I could start speaking Turian and you would still see me speaking English. Its complicated stuff, if you want an in-depth explanation, try a Salarian."

"What about new languages?"

The Turian thought about it for a moment. "Hmm… usually it gets added to the omni-tool database and then networked to all active omni-tools as a language update. But first someone wearing an omni-tool has to be capable of speaking that language."

Tessa _really_ didn't like the sound of that. "So… if an Asari mindmelded with someone who knew this new language, and she was wearing an omni-tool…"

"Yeah, that language would probably be added. Keep in mind that unlike mindmelding, using an omni-tool with the right language doesn't let you speak it, only translate what you hear of it into a language you know. You could have a Salarian and a Krogan chatting and the Krogan would assume the Salarian is talking his own language, and the Salarian would think the Krogan is speaking Salarian. Make sense?"

This was bad news. "So how would I go about deleting a language from the library?" she asked, her voice betraying both extreme anger and sadness.

"You'd have to talk to the Council directly and then, if they accepted your request, they'd have to contact the guys behind the omni-tool updates database and get them to remove it," the Turian told her. "Why do you want this language removed, anyway?"

Tessa scowled under her helm. "It's a sacred language. If there are translators out there, they must be killed or mindwiped or erased or whatever. Speaking it without having earned the right to is blasphemous and _must_ be dealt with. _PERMANENTLY._"

The Turian whistled. "Yeah, I think you might be able to get through to the Council with that. Here, give me your wrist for a moment…"

-.-.-.-

Wrex had a few more things in his duffle bag when he returned. But he was more than surprised that Tessa wasn't there.

"She's gone to the Citadel Tower to talk to the Council about removing a sacred language from the omni-tool database," the shopkeeper told him before he could even raise his fist.

"Grr…"

"I _did_ ask her to wait until you'd gotten back, but she just ignored me and stomped off." the Turian shrugged. "I'm sorry. Just never bring her back and the entire purchase is on the house."

-.-.-.-

"Elilia," Ordis began worriedly, "Tessa is about to get herself in trouble."

Elilia had been in the Liset, talking about Tessa's future in this bold new world for a good three and half hours before Ordis had warned her. Despite the massive information exchange between Tessa and Elilia, there was still much she felt she needed clarification on.

She sighed. "How?"

"Data indicates that she may be attempting to contact the Citadel Council in order to get them to remove the Orokin language from the omni-tool database."

"Can you ask her to come here?" Elilia questioned, leaning forward from her position of sitting cross-legged on the floor. "I can remove the language myself, there's no need to get the Council involved."

"…"

"Ordis?"

"She is on her way. If possible, I would like for you to meet her at the C-Sec entrance," Ordis requested, almost emotionlessly. "She may be angry and will likely need your guidance to get here."

"Alright. Is there any way for me to contact you outside this Liset?" Elilia asked, flicking on her omni-tool.

"Sadly that answer is no. There is a language barrier of my own in the way," Ordis said sadly. "_And even the goddamn translator program doesn't work here!_ … Apologies. I still haven't found the source of these glitches."

"Ordis, as long as you aren't going to do anything violent, glitch-ridden or otherwise, I should be able be able to keep you as our little secret. AIs are illegal here, remember?" Elilia reminded her new companion reassuringly.

"I am aware." Ordis muttered. "Has Commander Shepard given you an update yet?"

Elilia got up and stretched. "She hasn't yet, but if Tessa's alone like you say she is, I most definitely _will_ be having a word with her."

-.-.-.-

Shepard was about to have a breakdown. Half her crew were missing or searching for the missing ones who she couldn't contact as one of them hadn't given her his omni-tool contact details and the other one didn't even _have_ an omni-tool.

"Pressly… what am I gonna do?" she asked, distraught, her hands over her face.

"Maybe contact C-Sec. If anyone knows where anyone is on the Citadel, it'd have to be them," the balding navigator suggested. "We don't have any leads on Saren yet so I'd say we've got about five or six hours before we have a destination in mind."

Shepard breathed out slowly. "Okay," she agreed, standing up just as her omni-tool pinged. "What?"

_Shepard,  
>I've found Tessa wandering all alone in the C-Sec academy. I expect you to come pick her up as soon as possible. And I have directed Wrex to the <em>Normandy_for you.  
>~Elilia T'Morza<em>

"I don't know if I should be happy or angry about this…" Shepard muttered darkly as she stormed her way to the airlock. "Pressly, do me a favour and keep the rest of the squad tied up in the hangar."

"Aye, aye, Commander!"

-.-.-.-

Just a few more taps… a quick password there… and… "There. Orokin is now a secure language once again."

"THANK YOU!" Tessa shrieked, hugging the Asari with all of her quite considerable strength. "Thankyouthankyouthankyou!"

"Oooff… you are welcome Tessa," Elilia said when she was finally released, "but now I'm going to have to ask you a few questions."

"But-"

"No buts." Elilia told her, setting her down on the floor. "Tell me everything that happened since I left you in the Commander's care." she ordered.

Tessa sighed. "Well we had a chat, then Garrus, Wrex and Mom went to some place called Chora's Den to kill someone or something, and I went with Ashley and Dad to visit Dr. Michel's medical clinic because Garrus had a lead there that he wanted to check out but couldn't since Mom and Wrex were on their way to kill someone important on his hit-list and then when me, Ashley, and Dad got to the clinic there was a bunch of thugs so we killed them, took their guns, sold it to a Salarian named Morlan while dad got told about a Quarian who had information they needed and before Mom killed the other guy they interrogated him so that we knew where the Quarian was and then Mom got pinned down so Dad and me and Ashley had to go save her and she shot me at point blank range with a shotgun like twenty-something times while yelling at me, then we went to a diplomats bar, waited for the commander and then we got the evidence off the Quarian, whose name is Tali, Wrex wasn't allowed in the bar so he went off to collect the bounty for killing this dude in Chora's Den, Mom took Garrus and Tali to that big tower, Ashley was off getting drinks, Dad was going to the toilet or something when I saw Wrex again and then he took me shopping, I found out that the omni-tools automatically downloaded languages from your brain and that's why I was mad because the Orokin language is SACRED and then Ordis told me to go to the C-Sec academy and then you found me and now we're back on the Liset."

Elilia was speechless. "By the goddess… how did you-"

"It's my Warframe," Tessa explained glumly. "It can supply me with oxygen while I talk so I don't really need to breathe while I wear it."

"That is… extraordinary."

"No it isn't. It's just chemical and mechanical integration." Tessa looked at her like she'd just asked a really stupid question. "My body is literally overflowing with nanite technology. Heck, if I go down in the field, it's the job of my friends to give me an 'adrenaline' dose of _more_."

Elilia sighed. "So much of your technology is illegal here. Ordis is an AI, your body is crawling with nanites, and your weaponry simply ignores kinetic barriers."

"Yeah well it's a crossbow." Tessa sulked, folding her arms and staring at the floor. "It's not my fault your crummy shields can't do shit against throwing knives, either."

The Asari had no idea where to begin. "I'll have to advise the Council, obviously, but… you are a localised case." she _hmm_ed.

"Oh just tell them and if they have any problem they can shove it up their-"

"Operator!" Ordis gasped in horror of Tessa using such foul language.

"-weird, alien, behinds."

"No." Elilia told her sternly. "No blowing up anything on the Citadel."

"You can't exactly _stop_ me," Tessa frowned. "Not unless you're willing to cause excessive collateral damage…" she added as an afterthought. "I suppose if I got caught in the wrong situation it'd be possible, but if readings from my earlier 'firefight' were anything to go by I'd survive even longer than usual."

Elilia grumped. "That's why I'm asking you not to."

"You _told_ me not to! That's completely different!" Tessa whined sadly.

"_Please_ do not blow up anything on the Citadel." Elilia corrected herself, giving Tessa a quick hug. "Commander Shepard is on her way, and I want both of you to stick together from now on, okay?"

Tessa bit her lip. "She left me with Dad- uhh, Kaidan, and Ashley like five minutes after meeting me."

Elilia sighed. "Chora's Den isn't the kind of place someone of your development should be," she explained. "It's… how do I put this…"

"A foul establishment with a lowly reputation and a diseased mindset." Ordis said confidently. "I approve of Commander Shepard's decision not to bring you there. Operator Elilia, Shepard is almost here."

Tessa looked out the window, getting up. "Doesn't she need a passcode or something to get in here?" she asked.

"She's a Spectre now. In her current mood I doubt she will use anything less than brute force to find you, Tessa." Ordis responded. "_She had better keep you safe…_"

The Asari in the room finally got up. "Should we let her in or have this conversation outside?"

"Is she gonna be mad at Ordis?"

"Hopefully not." the Cephalon's cube fizzled into existence over the main navigation console. "Your previous boyfriend-"

"Zen was _NOT _my boyfriend!" Tessa's face when bright pink as she violently denied Ordis' implication. Zen was just an Ash she knew a while back… they were just good friends!

"… Your previous male companion did not seem to appreciate me much." Ordis finished while Elilia hid her smirk. "Allowing Commander Shepard entry."

The ramp opened up, allowing the view of the stars, the docking bay, and one extremely pissed-off redhead into the Liset. "Where. The hell. Have you been." Shepard demanded, stomping up the ramp and glaring like a demon at her 'daughter'.

"Wrex took me shopping!" Tessa said cheerfully, holding up her new omni-tool.

"Tessa-" Ordis began, his cube popping up over the console again, only to be cut off by Sherpard pointing her pistol at his avatar.

"Is that an AI?"

"I am a Cephalon." Ordis responded. "Please cease trying to threaten me with your gun. Shooting will achieve nothing more than breaking the window."

"It was AI that killed Jenkins back on Eden Prime, it was AI that attacked Eden Prime in the first place!" Shepard yelled right back. "I'm not letting my first act as Spectre be letting you loose on the galaxy!"

"Mom-"

"I AM NOT YOUR MOTHER!" Shepard pretty much screamed at the Tenno.

"Commander, you need to calm down." Elilia frowned at the newest Spectre, holding out her hand wreathed in biotic blue energy, ready to snap a Stasis on Shepard.

"I have had _the _single most stressful day of my _life_ today." Shepard started, her hair a mess. "All I want to do right now is go and blow something the fuck up."

There was silence in the Liset after that. Shepard glared at the three in front of her, and they stared back. Tessa, however, was trying her best not to cry. This woman in front of her was almost identical to her own mother, and whether she was or wasn't, hearing that same voice say what it did was almost too much for her to bear.

"… You're right. You aren't my mother. Goodbye, Shepard." Tessa whispered, turning around and falling to a meditative position.

Shepard was rather taken aback. "Hey, now-"

"Get out." Tessa told them calmly.

"Tes-"

"GET OUT!" She screeched at them, her armour and body flaring up as Void energy coursed through it.

She didn't turn around, but she knew they were gone when Ordis closed the ramp again.

"Tessa? Are you… okay?" Ordis asked, his voice filled with concern.

Tessa struggled to speak, her throat closing up as tears threatened to break free. "No, Ordis, I'm not," she whispered, barely loud enough to hear herself.

Ordis didn't respond after that, which Tessa was thankful for. She needed a moment to get her emotions under control. She'd never had to deal with anything like this before.

"What do we do now?" Ordis asked, his near-shattered cube floating in front of Tessa.

"I don't know Ordis. I don't know." Tessa replied. "Do we have anywhere to go?"

Ordis paused to calculate the stars. "No. Attempts to integrate maps and other coordinate data from your omni-tool have proved unsuccessful due to conflicting natures in both hardware and code. _The archaic thing uses hard-hologram! How am I supposed to work with THAT?!_ Even with the Orokin translation software no progress has been made."

"Damnit…" Tessa swore. She got up, and started pacing. "How am I supposed to DO anything?!" she shouted, kicking her codex console in frustration. "This is kubrowshit!"

"Operator Tessa," Ordis began thoughtfully, "we may be able to contact other members of the Normandy to sort things out between you and-"

"No." the young girl bluntly refused. "I'm not going near her."

"I cannot simply fly us out of here into deep space with no idea where we are, Tessa!" Ordis argued. "We need help whether we like it or not-_ which I certainly don't!_"

Tessa shrieked in frustration. "FINE! I'm going to go visit this 'Citadel Council' and see if I can get us something to blow up." she growled. "And if they don't want to help, well, that's why I'm bringing my goddamn Attica."

"Oh dear…"

-.-.-.-

**Please Review! Feedback and reactions are always greatly appreciated**

**~Pyro**


	2. Chapter 2

**Onwards to chapter 2! **

**In response to some reviews:  
>Yep, I used the Asari Mind-Meld Bullshit Cliché. I am very sorry for this but the way I see it, the Council and associates are lazy enough that if they have a method that works, they wont bother with anything else. And Ordis is lacking in inspiration.<br>Yep, Tessa's immature. Some Tenno fight for honour, some for wealth, and some because it's a half-decent morally acceptable excuse to go blow shit up.  
>I am fairly horrible at writing action scenes and I've very sorry for putting them off :( but on the plus side... Therum's coming up, right? <strong>

**Enjoy**

**~Pyro**

**-DiScLaImEr: I don't own Warframe or Mass Effect.- **

-.-.-.-

"Ordis, Let me out." Tessa demanded, growing even _more_ frustrated by the moment.

"Tessa, I think it would be more beneficial if you- _SIT DOWN, SHUT UP, AND LISTEN TO WHAT I HAVE TO SAY!_- listen to some suggestions before you go cause trouble," Ordis told her.

Tessa growled and folded her arms, tapping her toes impatiently. "Get on with it."

Ordis seemed to sigh. "You have not been performing at peak efficiency nor have you been acting like you usually do. I would appreciate if you tell me why and what this has achieved."

"Their weapons _suck_. They're just bland stock-standard rifles, pistols, shotguns, and snipers. They've got some interesting mods but nothing out of the ordinary." Tessa replied, leaning on a console. "They're interesting though… what better way to learn about your potential enemies than present yourself as an ally?"

"Datamining." Ordis replied. "Among other things."

"Yeah, a lot of which aren't possible for us right now, you said it yourself." Tessa argued. "Against my shields, all their stuff is shit. But below that, next to everything is puncture-based. The shrapnel is next to nothing. I've convinced them 'nanites' are why my physiology is crazy."

"Instead of the Technocyte…" Ordis murmured thoughtfully. "That really was quite ingenious!"

"Telling them I'm the result of the Void and a bioengineered techno-virus might not go down so well. I've given them the impression I'm a glass cannon. Not the heavy artillery." Tessa smirked. "What have you managed to find out?"

"The races here are frightfully xenophobic of AI and other artificial life, which they call 'Synthetic' due to 'Artificial' being a slur." Ordis did the cuboid equivalent of a shrug. "_Why these idiots do it is beyond me-_ they will actively try to kill all Synthetic life but refuse to have slurs against them."

Tessa rolled her eyes. "Right… let's not spread the wrong idea about our feelings towards non-organic life."

"Surely you must have discovered something during your mind-meld with Elilia?" Ordis tried, hoping that Tessa would at least have something good.

"I'm not a Nyx, Ordis, I'm a Mirage. My mind games are the physical ones." Tessa groaned. "But yeah, languages, general customs and rules… I know how Mass Effect tech works on a basic level, and biotics, but there is a slight problem that _she_ knows what _I'm _capable of."

"Including your self-made LAG protocol?"

"… yeah."

Ordis seemed to stare at her for a good long while. "Now what do you plan to do about Commander Shepard?"

"I don't want to be anywhere near that woman!" Tessa yelled, standing her ground fiercely. "She's made herself very clear where she stands."

"She is simply stressed, as are you." Ordis stated. "I can understand why. All I want you to do is follow her; according to Elilia she is on a mission to track down a rogue agent- this place's Alad V, if you will."

Tessa frowned. "Seriously? Alad V? He cannibalised Warframes into Zanuka."

"And this one is cannibalising corpses into soldiers and is also utilising a robotic army. However these Geth are not MOA proxies, and are actually quite intelligent." Ordis replied. "I would very much like to meet them."

"You can't even communicate with them."

"I can try." Ordis pouted. "If one of their mobile units can understand English and send and receive an appropriate audio response then we will have achieved contact. Highly inefficient contact but contact all the same."

"Whatever." Tessa sighed. "Fine. I've calmed down now. Can you let me out?"

"No."

"GODDAMNIT ORDIS!"

-.-.-.-

"I asked you to _look after her!_" Elilia repeated for the sixth time. To call Commander Shepard stubborn was the understatement of her life.

"I have to track down Saren and take him down before he can kill anyone he damn well pleases!" Shepard yelled, horribly frustrated. "And there's a bloody AI on her ship! I've seen what Synthetics can do when they decide they don't like organics and-"

"She can help you, Shepard!" Elilia interrupted, pointing to the alien ship. "I've seen what she can do and to turn down help like this is just…" she took a deep, calming breath, "Shepard, she is a Tenno, a warrior from birth, trained almost purely in combat in ways you could never imagine."

"I can imagine lots."

"Alright then." Elilia stood her ground. "What do you think a routine mission for her might be?"

That one had Shepard stumped. "What?" she asked, dumbstruck. "That's- okay, I guess she'd be… uhh… I don't know. What does she do?" Shepard asked, scratching the back of her head. "Counter terrorism?"

"She clears away plagues that turn your own men's corpses against you. She routinely clears entire cruisers of life. To turn away a destructive force like this is inviting her to cause chaos elsewhere, Shepard!" Elilia really wasn't about to let Tessa wreak havoc on the Citadel, "You can keep the destruction somewhere useful! Turn her loose against the Geth rather than something that isn't an issue right now, like the Quarians or the Batarians or- for the goddess' sake_ don't_ just let her go public!"

Shepard thought it all over. "I have had a really bad day."

"Well suck it up, Commander, because believe it or not, being a Spectre _isn't_ a stress-free job." Elilia said sternly. "Now if we can convince her to join you, and you two somehow avoid fighting each other, which would be just brilliant, you might have some extra-galactic help beating Saren."

Shepard sulked for a moment. "Fine. But I still don't have any leads."

"I'm sure the Council will have forwarded the relevant information to your Ambassador by now." Elilia sighed. "You go talk to him, I'll go talk to Tessa. Deal?"

"Deal."

-.-.-.-

Pressly saw the rest of Shepard's recently-recruited crew and instantly understood how she felt. Why they felt the need to get couches, a fridge, and a table, he had no idea.

"Garrus, did you remember the poker chips?"

"How could I possibly forget, Ashley, what with you reminding me every twenty seconds?"

"Point taken."

"Good, because I forgot them."

Pressly would just let them fight for now. It would keep them occupied, right?

-.-.-.-

Tessa and Shepard were once again facing each other down on the ramp of some dock neither of them cared about. And this time there was less hugging. Shepard had no idea how this'd happened, where Elilia had gone, or why she was volunteering to talk to the walking WMD.

"So…" Shepard started, not quite sure where to begin. "Do you wanna-"

"I'd rather blow up something than be part of your crew." Tessa glared at her.

"… okay." Shepard wasn't going to argue with that. "But about your Synthetic-"

"He can't leave the Liset." Tessa continued to glare at the Spectre. "And he's not going to go rage out and kill you or anything. He can't."

Shepard really wanted to be reassured by that.

"The best he could do is splatterkill you with the Liset, but he's a better driver than that."

"That isn't very comforting." Shepard told the scowling pink-haired demon in front of her. "Look, I think I'm just going to go do this thing about taking out Saren and his Geth and just leave your ship and you to Elilia once it's over."

"Good plan." Tessa said. "Just so long as I don't have to deal with_ you_, everything should go _fine._" she turned around, heading back into her ship to grab her weapons. "How long do you think it'll be before we can get back here?"

Shepard shrugged. "I don't know. We could be away from the Citadel for… ages. This is the first time I've been here, actually."

"I'm gonna have to bring a couple of segs then," Tessa muttered. "Ordis," she asked, putting on her helmet and muting the external speakers, "How long do you think it'd take to get a second Foundry made?"

Ordis' glowing cuboid appeared on her HUD. "Too long. I can make Void Keys that should allow you to instantaneously deliver and retrieve materials from the Liset."

"Good enough. How long?"

"Two hours, Tessa." Ordis disappeared.

Tessa turned back to the waiting Commander, lowering her helm. "I can be at the Normandy in two hours with everything I need." she called. "How long 'till we get to blow something up?"

Shepard shrugged. "Probably a few hours, once we get a lead. You'll get to spend some time with our teammates…" Shepard suddenly realised that if she and Tessa were going to continue to have such a hateful relationship towards each other, she might not have the chance to get to know the crew herself.

"Great… I'll bring some entertainment." Tessa said, shutting the ramp on her 'Liset', effectively ending their conversation.

Shepard walked back to the Normandy feeling like she'd dodged a bullet. And maybe a biotic throw from Elilia.

-.-.-.-

Shepard stared at the new addition to the Normandy's hangar bay, biting her lip. Across from the Mako was a pair of three-seater couches arranged in an L shape around what could have been a dining or coffee table- though it looked like it was made for Elcor.

Several of the crew, notably Ashley and Garrus, were looking at her worriedly, like she was about to have a stress-induced aneurism or something. Wrex didn't care and was smiling like an idiot as he lounged on the couch, and Tali looked like she'd just pissed herself in fear. Not that anyone could tell, with her envirosuit.

"Y'know what? I ain't even mad." Shepard just threw her arms up in a shrug. "I'll probably be doing paperwork or getting some goddamn sleep if anyone needs me." she said, leaving.

The 'deer in the headlights' look didn't leave the crew until the Commander was most definitely out of the room.

"I feel…" Garrus didn't know how to finish that statement.

"Like you dodged a bullet?" Wrex asked, chuckling.

"Oh, no, I've done that before. The feeling of relief here is _much_ greater." Garrus sighed. "At least we have some decent seating now. Military ships are painfully Spartan at times."

"Uhh… am I allowed in Engineering?" Tali asked, almost afraid to make a move in case she wasn't.

Ashley frowned when Kaidan showed up from out of nowhere to answer. "Yeah. The new captain said that the ground crew, meaning all of _us_, are full Normandy members. So long as you don't break anything I don't think there'll be a problem with you in Engineering, Tali." he said tiredly. "You guys forgot to get cards, didn't you?" he pulled out a small box from his back pocket and put them on the table before anyone could even nod.

"Thanks…" Ashley said, before Kaidan disappeared. "Uhh… I guess he'll be with the doctor."

"I heard the first Human L2's had some 'side effects' with their biotics," Garrus mentioned, sitting down and taking out the cards to shuffle them.

"The Lieutenant gets migraines like nobody else," Ashley sighed, flopping down in Tali's recently vacated spot. "Wrex, poker?"

"Sure."

-.-.-.-

Tessa looked down the airlock of the Normandy and sighed. She really, _really_ didn't like this. Her modified Shade Sentinel followed her, its dangling bits flopping around whenever it hit something. Tessa had added a Para's blade to the back of it and two small 'arms' to the front, a Void Pocket interface, and an updated AI control module.

As a result, the little Shade was now a semi-Carrier that could cloak itself while it grabbed any interesting bits of loot from the corpses of the battlefield. It didn't have any guns, as she'd placed a Helios Inspector-eye there instead. She called it Twitch.

She missed Elilia. The blue Asari had been one of the few faces to remain friendly to her despite everything that had happened. Chopping off a lizard-man's arm with her Glaive had been fun; the look on his painted face was absolutely priceless! Or, she hoped it was.

The doors opened automatically as Tessa got close, and closed behind her. "Well that's new," she muttered as the audio system said something about a sterilisation field.

On the other side lay the one face Tessa had come to both love and hate; Kara… Shepard.

"Hey Tessa. I'm glad you made here ok."

"No, Shepard, you're glad I made it here without destroying anything." Tessa grumbled, letting her helmet slide away. "Let's just get this over with as painlessly as possible, please."

Shepard sighed, rubbing the back of her head. "You've worked with people you don't like before, huh?"

"Yep."

"Alright, I'll give you the quick essentials tour." Shepard pointed to her right. "Up there is Joker, he's the pilot. Down here is the control center. We call it the CIC." the big glowing map of the galaxy was very interesting to Tessa.

The numerous crew members gave her an odd look about her hair once or twice but other than that they went about their jobs without complaint or question. Tessa hoped that they weren't indoctrinated like Corpus crew were…

"Hey Pressly. Nice work keeping the crew in one place while I was gone. Thanks."

"It wasn't a problem." the bald guy saluted.

Shepard looked at Tessa again. "This is Pressly. He's the navigator, and if I'm not available, he's in charge."

"Hi." Tessa gave a little wave. Twitch scanned him and made a slight whistling sound before scanning everyone and every_thing_ else. "I'm Tessa, and this is Twitch," she pointed to the Shade.

"Pleasure to meet you," Pressly nodded, before going back to his work. Whatever that was.

"Moving on, behind the CIC is the meeting conference whateveryacallit room," Shepard pointed to the room behind the almost-pointless wall. "And here's the stairs down," she directed, opening a door and leading the way.

"This is a lot bigger than most allied craft I've ever been on." Tessa muttered, looking around in almost-awe. "Are all your ships like this?"

Shepard almost laughed. "God no. Anderson and I have copped a lot of flak because this thing was so goddamn expensive and _new_. Innovation; it never goes down well with the brass, does it?"

The pair found themselves in an open space below the CIC, with a table and chairs in one spot and the occasional crewmember having a break or going to the sleeping pods. "Briefing table, sleeping pods that we call bunks for some reason," Shepard said, pointing each out as she went, "Medlab is over there, which we have a few things to do in there at some point-" Shepard was interrupted by her omni-tool pinging her.

"Hey Commander," Kaidan waved from his corner by the sleeping pods. "Hows-"

"Hey Kaidan, can you finish giving Tessa the tour?" Shepard asked distractedly, "Sorry, but I've got to deal with some Intel from Anderson…" she trailed off, going down the hall into the room next to Kaidan's little posse.

The Lieutenant and the Tenno stared at each for a moment. "Well… okay." Kaidan shrugged. "Captain's room slash office," he said, pointing at it. "Doctor Chakwas is in the medlab, uhh… back over there is the elevator down to the hangar bay, which only really holds the tank and the rest of the ground crew."

"Neat." Tessa liked Kaidan more than she liked Shepard. He was more willing to go along with her.

"Down behind the elevator is Engineering and the Eezo Core. And that's pretty much everywhere we're allowed on the ship." Kaidan finished, almost apologetically. "It's small, but it's quick and stealthy."

Tessa nodded. "Stealth is good. What's the cloaking on this thing like, anyway?"

Kaidan frowned. "Uhh… we can hide ourselves from everything _but_ visual detection." he said. "I guess out technology is pretty 'primitive' compared to yours."

Tessa shrugged. "Not really. I mean, I'm using a _crossbow._" she had to mentally restrain herself from snickering. _Just wait, it'll be so much more fun…_

"I'll take your word for it." Kaidan shrugged. "I'm just going to stay here and wait for my migraine to go away…" he sat down and pulled over one of those orange screens that were everywhere Tessa looked, effectively ending the tour.

"'Kay." Tessa shrugged, walking to the Medlab. "Thanks!" she called, before encountering an ageing woman with very light grey hair.

She didn't look up from her work, but merely motioned to Tessa to sit down on one of the many tables. Or beds. They didn't _look_ like beds, but Tessa hadn't really encountered any before. "I'll be with you in a moment," the old woman mumbled, typing furiously onto a glowing orange keyboard.

"Are you doctor Chakwas?" Tessa asked, using her 'innocent' voice. Anybody who really knew her knew that she was a trickster and a prankster through and through. Only the occasional Loki Tenno could out-do her on deception.

"Yes." Chakwas finally finished what she was doing and turned her attention to Tessa. "Hmm… you have very bright hair." she remarked.

Tessa smiled, blushing a little. "Shepard said we'd have to do something-"

The good doctor gasped. "_You're _the alien she mentioned? You look so Human though," she stated, getting up and moving next to Tessa. "Lie down," she commanded.

"I _was_ Human… I think…" Tessa rolled her eyes as Chakwas scanned her with her omni-tool before using the big built-in one. "So what are we doing here?" she asked, really desperately wanting to poke the slow-moving ring.

"_You_ are going to sit still, missy," the doctor chided, giving Tessa a stern look. "Your species-"

"I'm just Tenno-"

"Tenno," Chakwas corrected herself, "are a medically undocumented species. Add the rest of the drama that went on outside and we know next to nothing about you." she explained.

"I might be able to answer some questions," Tessa didn't know all that much about her biology, considering the Technocyte virus and Void energy left her as anything but human.

"Are you dextro or levo?"

"… pass."

Dr. Chakwas sighed. "You're awfully young to have been recruited by the Commander already." she commented. "You're a levo, that much is good news. But- that…" the doctor slowly backed away from Tessa. "That shouldn't be possible!"

Tessa groaned. "_What_ shouldn't be possible? The fact that my guts are more metal than meat?"

Chakwas nodded, rendered speechless by the data in front of her.

"I suppose the nuclear fusion stuff going on in there is also crazy." Tessa muttered. "Doc, I come from a place where we casually kick physics in the face whenever can put the energy into it." she said, sitting up now that the big scanner had retracted. "I should be dead, or even insane, but I'm not. I was born like this."

Chakwas sat down, dazed. "Underneath your skin is enough radiation to outright kill a Thresher Maw."

Tessa shrugged. She had no idea what a Thresher Maw was but it sounded like a Lephantis sibling. "I'd appreciate it if we _didn't_ tell anyone about my screw-physics body," she said softly. "I don't want to cause more trouble than I do just by being here."

"If you die, can I have your corpse for examination?" Chakwas joked, leaning on her desk.

"Sure. But Ordis will have to give you the go-ahead that I'm actually dead." Tessa smiled devilishly.

The doctor sighed. "Do I want to know who Ordis is?"

Tessa chucked a small black disk onto the desk, grinning madly. "Ordis, you can come out now," she sang.

A small holographic cuboid appeared above the disk, swivelling to face the two occupants of the room with an equally disdainful gaze. "You aren't making things an easier, Operator Tessa." It said, before the cracked face appeared before the stunned doctor. "Hello, Doctor Chakwas. I am Ordis, ship Cephalon."

"A Synthetic?"

"I am an Orokin AI, yes." Ordis answered. "Tessa is making it very hard for me to keep my existence secretive."

Tessa got up and left. "I'll leave you two to discuss the sciencey stuff."

-.-.-.-

Garrus eagerly gathered up the waiting pile of chips. "And that is yet another win for the Turian!" he announced proudly. "Don't be sad Ashley, I just have a better poker face than you do."

"In that case we should get Tali in here." Wrex rumbled. "I think we can all agree Quarians have the best poker faces."

"Hi guys…" a young girlish voice called from behind them. Tessa appeared like she hadn't been shot by Tali at all.

"Tessa, how good of you to join us, here, come sit down and have a drink," Garrus scooched over and patted the seat beside him.

"Is she even old enough to drink?" Ashley muttered, raising an eyebrow.

Wrex shot her a look. "She's old enough to fight, she's old enough to drink." he chuckled. "You know how to play poker, kid?"

Tessa sat down and shook her head. "Nope. The only friendly competition I remember were duels and Spectre wars."

Garrus almost choked on his beer. "What?!"

"Wait, no, not Spectres like you know them," Tessa amended, thinking quickly, "More like… umm… wow this is confusing." she mumbled, looking down. "It's kinda like proxy duels, I guess."

"You call your robots Spectres?" Garrus couldn't really believe it.

"I'll show you later." Tessa waved her hand dismissively. "And why wouldn't I be old enough to drink?" she asked, curious.

Garrus looked to Wrex for help, and the sadistic grin he got in return was not very helpful. "Uhh… do you have any experience with alcohol?"

"Alca-whatnow?"

"Nevermind." Garrus shook his head and passed the assembled card deck to Ashley, who was possibly the only player capable of shuffling the damn things.

Tessa watched them play for a while, listened to the announcement that they were leaving in an hour once all the remaining crew got back, and generally got bored.

"So… is there anything to do around here?" she asked, practicing that thing that she saw Mesa Warframes do where they spun a pistol around their finger by the trigger. So far she'd only shot herself in the thigh once before Garrus had stolen her pistol and put the safety on. It was a gun. _Why do guns need safeties? They're _designed_ to kill._

All three of the players shrugged, but Ashley spoke first. "None of us have been aboard very long… but aside from training and maintenance there's not a lot to on Alliance vessels," she explained. "Well, if you're ground squad that is. Everyone else has a job that's actually relevant- Wrex! It's my turn!"

"Heh."

Ashley glared at the Krogan for a moment before continuing. "Everyone else has stuff to do. We're just expected to be ready to fight whenever it comes up."

Tessa finally managed two spins with her pistol before it fell out of her grip. "Dang… that actually sounds like business as usual."

Wrex chuckled. "I'm not even sure if I want to know what business as usual means to you."

"Go here, kill the things, steal the loot, go home." Tessa sighed, leaning back on the couch. "Though… this is nice… and soft…" she tried to suppress a yawn and failed. Somehow her eyelids seemed heavy and refused to open.

"And I win again!" was the last thing she heard before drifting off to sleep.

-.-.-.-

Shepard looked at the doctor with an expression that could only be described as 'are you freaking kidding me?' "Are you seriously trying to tell me that the pink haired little demon in the hangar-"

"Tessa, yes."

"-is a walking biohazard?"

The cuboid on the desk fizzled slightly. "No. We are trying to tell you that blood transfusions and other fluid-based exchanges are an _extremely_ bad idea."

"I don't like you, cube." Shepard announced, narrowing her eyes at the Cephalon.

"My name is Ordis, and while I was told to be nice to you, I believe the feeling is currently mutual." The hologram replied.

Chakwas sighed. Ever since Shepard had gotten aboard the Normandy it felt like all her problems had grown tenfold. "Ordis has also told me that, how do I put it lightly…"

"Is she going to explode?" Shepard asked. "Because I really do not need to deal with exploding crewmembers right now." Nobody could tell if she was being serious or not. But then again this was the famed Commander Shepard: she'd gotten herself _into_ and _out of_ more exotic trouble than most galactic explorers did.

"Fine, I'll put it bluntly then," Chakwas glared at the Commander, "Tessa's due to go through 'Tenno Puberty' sometime in the next eight months."

Shepard was silent. Then she folded her arms, put a hand to her head, and took a deep breath. "Okay," she said calmly, "What does this mean?"

Ordis chose that exact moment to perk up. "She's going to grow up into a fully-fledged adult Tenno warrior! Over the course of several years, however."

"To rephrase, what should I expect to happen?"

Chakwas leaned back in her chair. "Surprisingly, only physical changes. Ordis and I have discussed this in depth, and I believe that the inevitable emotional and psychological changes might be dependent on the fact that you and her mother are genetically identical."

Shepard froze. "What?" she looked at the doctor with growing horror in her eyes.

"You have an identical twin in another galaxy." Chakwas proudly announced. "I've compared the data from you, Kaidan, and Tessa. There is not a single strand of her DNA that cannot be found in your own and Kaidan's."

Shepard's expression turned into one of horror. "But that's-"

"Impossible, yes." Ordis spoke, his cube twirling. "But the universe loves to prove us wrong."

Shepard sighed, holding her face in her hand again. "How is this… 'puberty' going to effect the mission?"

Ordis and Chakwas seemed to share a look. "Well, it shouldn't really." The doctor told her. "But if we don't warn you now, you'll just get mad at us for not telling you later when it happens."

"Awesome." Shepard whispered. "And _why_ is that AI on my ship?!"

"I am not on this ship." Ordis responded. "I am merely transmitting my image and data to this terminal. _AND YOUR STUPID ARCHIAC CODE IS SO HARD TO TRANSLATE-_ I cannot interact with your ship, regardless."

Shepard raised an eyebrow at the outburst. "And what was _that_?"

Ordis hmphed disappointedly. "A glitch in one of my cognitive matrixes that I am yet to root out."

"Right…." Shepard was looking more and more deflated by the moment. "Okay, so aside from impending puberty, are there any other physical or mental prob- uhh… issues that I need to be made aware of?"

Chakwas brought up a holographic representation of Tessa on the medical table. "Yes, actually. While I haven't run any simulations with Ordis yet, she'll probably have a bad reaction to Medigel due to her _unique_ biology."

"We have our own medical methods, though; we can fill you in on them later." Ordis announced, almost proudly.

"Mentally, though, that's the interesting bit," the doctor looked thoughtful as she shifted the hologram to a deep brain scan. "She's not completely Human, but throughout her visit she was displaying readings similar to people with multiple personality disorder."

Shepard took a deep breath. "Oooh, boy…"

"I only said similar." Chakwas reminded the Commander, "She's young; too young for what she's expected to be," she explained, pulling up two more holograms for comparison. "Her body is pumping out the wrong chemicals and hormones, which is effecting her way of thinking."

Ordis appeared to nod. His cube rotated a little, but he was giving off the general feeling of agreement. "Outside of what she trained for, which was battle, she has next to no experience," he reported solemnly as the brain-holograms started shifting colours, "coupled with youth can lead to over-excitement and bad decision making. Tenno were _not_ the most social of creatures."

Chakwas turned off the projections and returned to her seat. "In short, she has a fractured identity; she's quite capable of scheming and seriousness when she's calm, but her youth takes that away when encountered with something new, like socialisation."

Shepard leaned on the table and rubbed her temples. "This is… confusing to say the least."

Chakwas smiled. "She's never had a chance to be a little girl and now that she can, it's going to happen whether she likes it or not."

"Is this going to affect the mission?"

Ordis twirled. "Not directly. Between operations could become interesting."

Shepard just shook her head and left. "I'm gonna go grab a few hours of sleep while I still can. Thanks for the heads-up, though. You're right, I do appreciate you telling me now rather than later."

-.-.-.-

Tessa woke with a start. She looked around in panic, wondering where the hell she was because it wasn't her Liset and wow whatever she was sitting on was comfy… so nice and soft…

And she fell asleep again.

-.-.-.-

Garrus had failed to get the bleary-eyed Tenno awake, and decided to recruit Kaidan to the cause.

"Garrus, why did you bring me down here again?" Kaidan asked, frowning as he looked at the scene in front of him. The table was a mess of cards and poker chips, Tali was lying on one couch half asleep, Tessa gently snoring in the corner of the other one, and the other two were nowhere to be seen.

"Last time I was there for a misunderstanding with her someone got shot in the eye." Garrus remarked. "I'd prefer if she woke up to a friendly face."

Kaidan facepalmed. "I'm not her father."

"_She_ thinks you are, which is what's important here." Garrus said. "We're only an hour away from Therum and the Commander wants the ground crew ready for briefing in… five minutes ago," the Turian shrugged, shaking Tali's shoulder to get her to wake up.

Kaidan shook his head in wonder. Oh what fun it is to ride on the Normandy. He crouched down next to Tessa, grabbing her hands. "C'mon princess, time to wake up," he announced, wriggling her fingers.

"Mhmm…"

"Tessa, you need to wake up."

"Mmm just five more years…" the girl mumbled, trying to turn over. It didn't work so well. She finally peeled open one eye to stare at Kaidan lazily. "Dad? What're you doing here?" she grumbled, trying to grab his face.

"We've got a mission, Tessa, so it's time to get up."

Kaidan heard Tali yawning behind him. "Oh, Garrus," she squeaked, hopping up.

"Mrhh… Dad, she shot me…" Tessa tried to point at Tali but failed. But, it seemed like she was finally awake. She pushed herself up, yawning and stretching. She looked around, trying to keep her eyes open and mostly failing. "Where am I?"

"You're on the Normandy."

"Is it a Liset?"

"… no." Kaidan frowned. "You have no idea where you are, but you remember that Tali shot you yesterday?"

"Mhmm…"

He chuckled. "Wow Tessa, you're just amazing." he said, helping her up. "C'mon, the Commander wants a briefing."

Tessa wiped the drool from the corner of her mouth and rubbed her eyes to get the sleep out of them. "Yeah… shouldn't you two be like, in bed or something?" she asked as the elevator started up. Garrus and Tali started snickering quietly beside them.

"No, Tessa. We're professionals." Kaidan replied, trying to get it into her sleep-addled brain that her parents were not the Alliance soldiers on board, but actually… something else. Kaidan had no idea what her father's job was.

"Kubrowshit!" Tessa slurred, "You two are_ always_-"

The Tenno was interrupted by a very pissed off Commander Shepard waiting at the door. "Ahem," she started, clearing her throat, "I'm pretty sure you lazy idiots were supposed to be up here a good twenty minutes ago."

Tessa stared at Shepard with one eye half-closed, before looking up at Kaidan. "Did you let her wake up alone again?" she asked innocently with a hint of inebriation, "because usually Mum gets pissy when you do that."

Kaidan's shocked reaction was all it took to send Garrus guffawing. "This is gold," he whispered, wiping tears from his eyes. "Pure gold!"

Shepard's glaring obviously had no effect on him, despite Tali shutting up. She was getting annoyed about that lately. It seemed almost like her death-glares needed work. "Congratulations, Garrus, you just earned shotgun."

Garrus slowly stopped laughing as the statement sunk in. Kaidan tried very hard not to snicker. Tessa however, became fully alert; "YOU'RE DRIVING?!" she shrieked, wide-eyed and slamming buttons on the elevator's controls, desperately hoping to send them away from her mother.

Shepard raised an eyebrow at the frantic display. "You're coming too, missy."

Tessa hid in the corner and pulled Kaidan between her and the Commander. "Dad! Talk some sense into her!"

That didn't go down very well.

-.-.-.-

Tessa liked the plan. Every single part.

Except for the tiny detail that Shepard was driving.

"Do you really have to drive?" she was almost pleading for her not to. Her own mother, back in the Origin System, had taken over a small Corpus crate-mover and Tessa had regretted being on board with her ever since.

"Yes, Tessa, now be quiet for a moment." Shepard scolded the child. "Okay, team, here's the plan."

Everyone was gathered around the table, several of them eating something. Garrus and Tali were making good use of the gourmet dextro-amino rations Nihlus had brought with him before his untimely death.

A holographic 3D map of the operational area popped up on the table. A lava-lake was right over Ashley's military porridge. "We're dropping in here, via Mako, because it's about as close as we can get with all the Geth activity in the sector." Shepard pointed to a small plateau.

"That's a pretty small landing zone," Garrus pointed out. His main concern that apparently shotgun meant he was sitting next to the driver. Considering Tessa's reaction, he wasn't all that sure that shotgun was a place he wanted to be.

"Yeah. But Joker's a pretty good pilot." Shepard smirked. "After that, we have to fight our way through… pretty much everything that moves and shoots on our way to here," another area of the map was highlighted, "which is where one Asari archaeologist named Liara T'Soni is."

"Blue…" Tessa hymmed, resting her head on the table.

"Yes, Tessa, she's blue." the Commander rolled her eyes. "Also, she's apparently the daughter of Matriarch Benezia, who just so happens to be that other voice we heard on the recording." Shepard nodded at Tali before continuing. "Tessa, Garrus, and Tali are coming with me in the Mako. Aside from the driver there's room for three and a gunner."

Tali raised her hand. "Um, not that I'm complaining or anything… but why us three in particular?"

Shepard smiled at her. "I'm glad you asked. You're coming with because you're the only one who has experience fighting Geth. Well, y'know, _decent_ experience." she grimaced. "I'm not sure the hazardous running and gunning on Eden Prime counts. Garrus because he's a good shot and Tessa because apparently she's a walking WMD."

Tessa grinned evilly at the rest of the crew from her position at the end of the table. _If only you knew…_

Wrex, Ashley, and Kaidan glanced at one another before the Krogan Battlemaster brought up a very important point. "So what about us three?" he asked, gesturing to Kaidan and Ashley.

"The basic report showed that there was a secondary dig near the main ruins T'Soni was investigating," Shepard explained, highlighting a third area of the map. "Team Alpha, that's my one, will be using the Mako up until this point. From there we're going on foot, which considering the amount of heavy artillery the Geth have deployed, isn't going to be fun. Also, lava."

"Can't forget the lava…" Wrex chuckled.

Shepard smiled. "Lava is very important. Once we've cleared out everything, Team Beta will pick up the Mako and go from the secondary drop point to the other ruins. There was something about a vault mentioned, and that it was giving off really weird readings, so be careful. And y'know, don't break anything."

"Why's Wrex on our team?" Ashley asked, frowning.

"Because if I'm honest, neither you nor Kaidan are as good at CQC as you need to be for this mission," Shepard told her. "On the bright side, you get to pick who drives."

Tessa almost wanted to swap to Team B.

"So we go through here, kill everything we meet that isn't blue, catch up and with team two who went on a vault run over there, and the day is saved." Tessa said, sitting up. "Sounds like a basic Capture mission to me."

"Dare I ask what that involved?" Garrus tilted his head in interest.

"Just blasting our way through armoured fortresses to find one or two people with Intel we need, and then getting to extraction. We never really got involved in the interrogation part though…"

"Hey, nobody is interrogating the Asari unless she's proven to be with Saren." Shepard reminded them sternly, waggling a finger at the assembled crew. "Team Alpha, we've got about ten minutes to hot-drop. Time to suit up!"

-.-.-.-

Twitch was waiting for Tessa on the bench Ashley used to cleaning and maintaining weapons. He was just sitting there on the corner, looking so lonely.

"Twiiiiiiiitch!" Tessa called in her sweet sing-song voice, summoning the modified Sentinel. Twitch reacted instantly, zipping over to the Tenno and pushing at her neck like an excited puppy. "Good to see you too, buddy," she whispered, cuddling the thing.

"What _is_ that?" Garrus asked, pointing at Twitch as he grabbed his weapons and armour from the locker.

"It's Twitch, he's a Shade Sentinel I modified," Tessa explained. "He can cloak, grab loot for me, and even fetch stuff from the Void."

Garrus was impressed. "How?"

Tessa shrugged. "I altered his AI to-"

"YOU HAVE AN AI ABOARD THIS SHIP?!" Tali shrieked, her shotgun already pointed at the pair.

"He's fairly dumb." Tessa raised an eyebrow. "I mean… he's barely more than adaptive programming and a few sensitive features."

"It's a Synthetic!" Tali hissed, gesturing with her shotgun.

"Twitch doesn't do anything more than loot battlefield wreckage. I can even get him to deliver ammo to you!"

"I don't trust it." Tali undoubtedly had narrowed eyes behind that purple mask.

"Whatever. Just don't kill him." Tessa shrugged. She just had her Glaives, nicely sheathed under her wrists, and the Attica. It was a pretty good gun capable of massive damage, but she skipped all that and simply built its modbase for pumping out as many arrows as it could as quickly as possible. Oh, and that lovely mod Thunderbolt that caused them to explode. She loved that one.

She held up the 'heavy' pistol she'd gotten from the hostage situation back on the Citadel. It was… fairly useless, by her standards. It'd take her several thermal clips and half an ammo block just to break through her shields.

"Hey Garrus, Angstrum or Marelok?" Tessa called from next to the Mako.

Garrus looked befuddled. "Uhh… what are they?"

"One of them is a dead-accurate mini-RPG launcher and the other's a heavy calibre pistol." Tessa replied chirpily.

"Angstrum?"

"Okay!" Tessa tapped Twitch, sending the neural command to retrieve her Angstrum. Twitch shimmered for a moment as his Void Mask came up, becoming ghost-like. The boxy pistol slowly faded into view in Twitch's 'arms', before both became solid and the Angstrum was dropped in Tessa's waiting hands. "Good boy!"

Tali had been watching the entire exchange suspiciously. "How did it do that?" she asked slowly.

Tessa shrugged, bringing her helmet up. "Void." she stated simply.

The elevator opened to reveal the great red-headed Commander Shepard, ready for battle. "You guys ready?" she asked, walking over to the Mako.

"Yep."

"Affirmative."

"She has an AI!"

Shepard sighed. "Tali, Tessa isn't from around here. I don't know how or why her Synthetics are her friends, but I'm not going to question it."

Tali looked conflicted.

Shepard growled. "Look, if they compromise the mission or anything, _then_ I'll let you go all Quarian on them. But until then, they're allies and I would rather keep them that way."

Tali grumbled but hopped into the backseat of the Mako anyway.

"And Tessa, I want you to keep those Synthetics of yours under control." Shepard ordered, slapping a fresh thermal clip into her pistol. She could have used it without the clip, but she definitely preferred having the shots available when in the middle of a firefight.

"Twitch is a complete idiot!" Tessa whined, throwing her Angstrum to the other side of the Tank. "Fetch!"

Twitch rammed itself into the tank repeatedly trying to get the gun.

Tessa just gestured to him, repeatedly. "See? He couldn't hurt anything if he tried." she grumbled, going around to retrieve the miniature missile-launcher and hopping into the tank next to a very hostile Tali.

"_Two minutes to hot-drop, Commander,_" Joker announced over the intercom. "_There's a couple of Geth dropships flying about so this is gonna be quick and dirty._"

Shepard nodded in satisfaction. "C'mon Garrus, you still have shotgun."

"I don't get it. What's so bad about this spot?"

-.-.-.-

"SPIRITS SAVE US!"

"Oh, shut up and help me spot Geth."

"There's one!"

"Thanks, Tessa!"

"WHY ARE YOU STILL DRIVING TOWARDS IT?!"

"There's another one!"

"SHEPARD SLOW DOWN AND LET ME SHOOT THESE BOSH'TETS!"

"Garrus, teach her how to aim sometime, will ya?"

-.-.-.-

Despite the fact that the rocky ground was still burning their feet through their armour, Garrus desperately wanted to kiss it just for being solid, and NOT being a driving Shepard.

"Garrus, it's over now." Shepard raised an eyebrow at the Turian who appeared to be worshipping the ground. Not the ground she walked on, sadly, just the ground.

Garrus slowly got up off his knees and staggered a few steps to lean on the Mako. "If you _EVER_ think about driving again I will throw myself out the airlock!" he threatened, breathing heavily. "Does your mother know-"

"Who do you think taught her…" Tessa groaned, sitting against one of the many wheels. She was sure she'd be covered in bruises if it weren't for her Warframe. Shepard's atrocious driving had flung her all about the insides, smashing her up against the walls in the backseat area. Suffice to say, the Origin System had no idea about even the concept of seatbelts.

"I am NOT THAT BAD OF A DRIVER!" Shepard all but screamed at them.

Tali seemed to be the only one unaffected by Shepard's insane tactics. "I don't think she's that bad. You'll have to teach me how do that manoeuvre-"

"Oh, Spirits, please no!"

"Quit whining, Garrus, we've got more Geth to kill and the sooner we can take them out, the sooner the other team can get their objective completed." Shepard ordered, checking her guns. "Tessa, how do you normally fight?"

Tessa got up and stretched, pulling her Attica off her back. "Well, most of the fighting is indoors, but for outdoors I just find a high place and rain hell on 'em." she shrugged before handing Shepard a small gauntlet-like device. "If I go down, which is pretty unlikely," she snickered, "hold this over me and pull the trigger 'till I get up." It looked almost like a Furax without the big knuckle-spikes.

Shepard checked the device. "What's it do?"

"Repairs my body and Warframe. Anything short of decapitation isn't a real problem if it's dealt with quick enough." Tessa replied.

Garrus nearly choked at that while Tali looked on in interest. "Are you telling me I could stab you in the heart-?"

Tessa winced. "That hurts… but yeah, if I can get the knife out it should be no problem. I'll be right again in like…" she muttered a few things while looking at the sky thoughtfully, "Half an hour? Without help, I mean. Otherwise I'll be up again in a few seconds."

"What if I managed to blow a giant hole in your chest?" Tali asked, sounding so serious that Shepard had to remind herself to get some team-building exercises or something going after the mission. She sounded so _enthusiastic_ about it.

Tessa frowned. "Maybe two minutes before my body shuts down." She wasn't ready to tell them that she'd been through 'death' several times now. Every time she'd woken in the Liset, in her Cryopod with Ordis watching over her. The thing that pissed her off about it was that it always took a week or so for her body to heal. She always missed _so_ _much_ in just one week.

Shepard whistled, impressed. "C'mon guys," she waved, starting them off on what looked like a fairly long hike before they'd encounter any more Geth. "You could really fight through all that pain?"

Tessa gave her an odd look. "Wait- getting a giant hole in your chest is supposed to hurt?"

Garrus looked pale. Shepard had no idea if that was even possible, but his expression of disbelief said it all. "Is- what- OF COURSE THAT'S SUPPOSED TO HURT!"

Tessa shrugged nonchalantly. "It's not my fault if you guys are a bunch of over-sensitive-"

"Contact," Shepard warned them quietly, slipping into cover behind a convenient slab of rock. She hoped that the Geth hadn't noticed them yet.

"FINALLY!" Tessa yelled happily, drawing the attention of several platforms. Several snipers started shooting at her. The other three looked at her like she had a deathwish as she just stood there, holding out her hand-

And suddenly there were five Tessas standing there.

"What-"

"GET SOME YA FREAKING PROXIES!" Tessa shrieked, cutting Shepard off. She flicked a little switch on her Attica before letting it go full-auto into the assembled Geth.

Shepard was about to grab Tessa and dive behind cover, but then the ground shook with the force of what she could only guess would be matched by the mother of all Thresher Maws herself, Kalros. She huddled up against the rock as close as she could, Garrus beside her, as her eyes went wide with fear and her heart thudded in her chest painfully. The explosions simply didn't stop, and the death-scream fizzles of the Geth were almost instantaneous after Tessa had unleashed the barrage of bolts.

Shepard had been clinging to her sniper rifle like it could save her. She didn't know when she'd screwed her eyes shut and clamped her hands over her ears, but she was shaking something awful as Garrus carefully peeled them away. She definitely hadn't noticed she'd been whimpering as the whole thing had blown over her.

"Shepard, it's over," the Turian said softly, holding her. Shepard didn't realise she'd be shaking.

Tali looked like she'd shit herself, and knowing the suits the Quarians wore, that was probably true.

And Tessa was just standing there happily, _giggling_, even, as she reloaded. "Oh it feels good to be killing stuff again," she sighed wistfully. "Pity there weren't more of them." she added, almost as an afterthought.

Twitch, appearing out of nowhere, -_seriously, where the hell has that thing been hiding?!_ Shepard thought- went to collect what little salvagables were left from the ruined and battered robot corpses.

Shepard slowly detangled herself from Garrus (who had a very comforting grip, she had to admit), and stood up shakily. She tried to glare at Tessa but failed completely. "What. The fuck. _Was that_?!" she demanded, pointing to devastation in the rocky bowl just ahead of them.

Tessa shrugged, as did her clones. "Uh, my way of fighting," she said. "Duh." The clones copied her every movement, and the way every single one of them was shimmering in and out of existence around her made it hard to Shepard to focus on the real one… or what she _thought_ was the real one.

"That wasn't a_ fight_ so much as a _massacre_." Garrus said pointedly.

"Yeah well tha- awesome there's more of them!" Tessa charged happily onwards, sliding before _leaping_ away and firing more of those dreadful bolts. Despite being a good few hundred meters away Shepard could still feel the vibrations in the rock under her feet.

"_Hey Commander? Is everything okay down there?_" Joker asked. The team could see the Normandy swooping in to pick up the Mako before disappearing into the sky again. "_The readings we're getting are off the charts. Does a localised magnitude eight point seven earthquake sound about right?_"

Garrus sighed. "Yes Joker. Tessa just…" he couldn't really explain it very well, "_destroyed_ everything."

"_You guys _need_ to tell me all about this after debrief._" Joker chuckled.

Shepard wanted to scream in frustration. Twitch came back to the spot Tessa had been in, looking around expectantly. When he didn't find her, he hovered over Tali, much to the engineer's annoyance. "Get away from me." she muttered angrily, scowling. Twitch's 'eye' looked at her, then her shoulder, then her faceplate, then her gun, then the rocks behind her…

"_Hey- does this involve explosions? Someone might want to go warn her before she triggers something. This _is_ a volcanic planet after all._" Joker suggested. "_Dropping off Team B now, Commander. We'll be waiting in upper atmo if you need us. Joker out._"

"Looks like you've made a friend," Garrus commented, trying not to chuckle as Tali muttered verbal abuse at Twitch.

"The bosh'teting thing won't leave me alone," she grumbled. "Can I just shoot it?"

"Not unless you want to bring Tessa's wrath down upon yourself, then no that's probably a very bad idea."

-.-.-.-

The trip to the excavation site was… traumatic, for the entire team. Whatever they could hear over the explosions was usually drowned out by Tessa's maniacal laughter over the comms.

"At least we have a solid way to contact her now, right?" Garrus tried to cheer Shepard up a little. He realised that Wrex and Tessa running off without a way to contact them had been stressful on her.

Shepard was at a loss for words. Tali was having a hard time shaking off Twitch, who'd once returned to drop a decapitated and heavily dented Geth head into her arms. She'd promptly thrown it at him and Twitch had just bounced back as though that was entirely normal.

"_Commander, the Geth are dropping in reinforcements._" Joker advised, helpfuly monitoring the situation from above.

"_YES! More cannon fodder!_" Tessa's enthusiastic reply made everyone fully aware of her evil grin. There was simply no way to have that tone of voice without one.

"_Think you can take out the entire dropship?_" Joker decided to be a smartass, not really expecting a positive response.

"_I'm not an initiate, Joker, of course I can take out a damn dropship!_"

Now, see, _that_ was the statement that got Shepard worried. "Why does life do this to me?" she asked no one in particular, stepping over the remains of what might have been a rocket trooper. With all the scorch marks, dents, and arrows sticking out of the thing it was hard to tell.

"If nothing else, you're probably the only person in the galaxy capable of directing this destruction down the proper path." Garrus supplied helpfully. "Team B, sitrep?"

"_It's going well- oof- mostly._" Kaidan's reply came half-interrupted. "_Wrex and Ashley are having the time of their lives. I'm stuck- WREX, BE CAREFU- nevermind… I've got my hands full trying to keep them from bringing the whole cave system down on our heads._"

Tali quietly slipped between Shepard and Garrus, circling the Turian as Twitch tried to follow her. Her plan was to get the damn Synthetic to follow someone _else_.

"_There's definitely a vault in here, though. We should have it open in half an hour or so. Depends on how long it takes for these two to get their acts together._"

"Well, good work, anyway." Garrus smiled. Aside from Shepard's traumatising driving, the endless explosions, and the general sense of disorganisation, this op was actually going pretty well.

"Make sure you quarantine whatever is in that vault, though," Shepard reminded them, slightly shakily. "I don't want any of you growing extra limbs or whatever because of it."

"_Copy that, Commander. Kaidan out._"

When the rest of the team finally got to the clearing where Tessa was waiting expectantly for the dropship to arrive, they saw something completely unexpected.

Tessa was sitting atop a pile of destroyed Geth playing around with her omni-tool.

"Hey guys," she waved. "Did you know this thing has a _sword_ option?!" she asked excitedly, showing off the dual blades she could make. She then stabbed one of the robot corpses in the arm and flicked it up in the air.

"Tessa…" Shepard growled, "You have some explaining to do."

Garrus was interested. "I'd like to hear about the 'fighting' you do back home. Is there anything you can't kill in ground-to-ground combat?" he asked, gesturing to the rather large pile of Geth with his sniper rifle.

Tessa shrugged. "Dunno. I haven't encountered much that I can't kill."

"_Dropship nearing your position now, Commander._" Joker reported.

Tessa eagerly jumped off the pile of Geth and reactivated Hall of Mirrors, summoning her four doppelgangers as the massive Geth dropship came into view. The inevitable torrent of explosions had the rest of the squad running for cover.

"Tessa!" Shepard yelled angrily, her and Garrus getting into position to snipe what few Geth survived falling to the planet. "We're literally sitting on a volcano right now! Wanna tone down the 'splosions a bit?"

"GET SOME!" the cry would have been slightly more intimidating and _much_ less terrifying if it hadn't been yelled in Tessa's rather high-pitched young voice. She completely ignored the Commander's request to tone it down though.

Garrus whooped in victory as he caused another flashlight head to explode. "Shepard, I don't think she's listening." he chuckled as he scored another perfect headshot. "Scratch one!"

"Get away from me already!" Tali shrieked at Twitch, who'd taken a liking to the Quarian that hated him. Twitch ignored her, of course, and brought back stray Geth heads. Tali did rig them into quite capable bombs before chucking them back into the legions of Geth emergency-dropping from the now heavily damaged dropship.

The absurdly strong kinetic barriers on the ship did nothing to stop the stream of crossbow bolts digging into its hull, nor could it protect the dropship from the explosions that followed as the Thunderbolts triggered.

One engine was thoroughly destroyed, causing the entire thing to list dangerously to one side. A series of blue-fire explosions tore through the dreadful machine, signalling its overdue demise. Two oversized crates fell from the burning wreck, landing on the ground with a hearty *_thu-crunch*_ before unfolding into Armatures.

Tessa was so busy gloat-dancing that the first siege pulse hit her face-first, sending her flying off the rock and onto the ground behind it. She moaned once as she tried to get up, only managing a few inches before falling down to the ground, silent.

"TESSA!" Shepard shrieked, storming her way to the fallen Tenno. She took the small gauntlet-like device Tessa had given her earlier and inspected it. A stray siege bolt hit the rocky slab she was hiding behind with a loud thump, giving Shepard a fright and almost causing her to drop the device. How had Tessa told her to use it, again? She couldn't remember!

"Commander Shepard," a synthetic voice yelled through the chaos of battle, coming from Tessa's possible corpse, "Just hold it over her and pull the trigger." Ordis reminded her.

Shepard really didn't like following orders- there was a reason she liked being Commander, after all, but she held it over the girl, the gauntlet fitting her hand like it was made for her. She closed her eyes and pulled the trigger, holding it down. A cloud of green gas washed over Tessa, causing her to gasp and jerk.

"UuuhARHH!" she screamed and squirmed, writhing in pain as the nanites in the gas went to work, repairing damage everywhere they found it with a prepared stock of chemicals and organic protein samples. Unknown to most, revival was the most painful thing a Tenno could experience; like their first, Hayden, they all had some variant strain of congenital analgesia, leaving them unable to feel pain. The nanites repaired everything; dead nerves included.

It only lasted about ten seconds, but it felt like an eternity of pain to Tessa; an encore of torture. Shepard hated putting her crew through anything like this, but if this really was the only way…

Tessa gasped and opened her eyes, springing to her feet and grunting through the hurt. "What the heck hit me?" she asked, hissing as she tried to regain her balance.

"Siege pulse," Tali advised, ducking behind cover as one of said pulses flew past her head, missing by inches. "The Geth seem to have upgraded since-"

"Incoming!" Garrus shouted, pointing out that the second Armature had tried to flank them. It was pretty hard to flank when the cliffs either side of the narrow canyon were impassable, but this Armature had decided to dig its feet in and climb, bombarding them from above.

"I hate these things already," Tessa grumbled, rolling her shoulders and cracking her neck. "I always forget how much revivals hurt." Shepard tried to hand back the gauntlet to Tessa, but the girl refused. "I can't revive myself, Shepard," she stated. Summoning her clones again, she rolled out into the open and threw her Glaive.

To the others, it looked like she'd just thrown a bladed death-Frisbee at the giant robot. Then Tessa threw a second one; in total there were ten Glaives flying at the Armature. Each one hit it dead on, cutting through important armour and wires before Tessa's Power Throw mod kicked in and the Glaives sent out a concussive blast, fracturing armoured plating and disrupting circuitry. As if that wasn't enough, each Glaive ricocheted off the Geth and the surrounding environment, going back to hit it again and again and again.

The Armature got off one more shot that went wildly off into the sky before in crumpled under the relentless assault. The second Armature hanging off the cliffs got a face-full of rockets from five Angstrums that had been modded specifically for max clip size and multishot. Nearly two hundred miniature RPGs slammed into it, each bringing with it the force of a train crash.

The whole process only took about fifteen seconds. Twenty if you count the time it took for the explosions to settle down. Tessa dismissed her mirror-images and walked down the path, putting her weapons away.

The other three stared in shock. Shepard's mouth was hanging open, and Garrus looked pretty much the same.

Tali had fallen to her knees, landing flat on her ass. "I…" she couldn't find the words to describe what she was feeling right now. None of them could.

"Hey, are we gonna save this Asari or not?" Tessa yelled impatiently from the top of the scaffolding.

-.-.-.-

Shepard looked up at the Asari stuck in some kind of stasis field on the other side of the barrier. The caves leading up to her had been rather… peaceful. Relatively. They'd encountered Geth, but nowhere near as many as outside.

"Oh, thank the goddess," the trapped Liara T'Soni started, twisting her head to try see her saviours, "I thought I would be trapped here forever!"

Shepard scratched the back of her head with the butt of her pistol. "Yeah… about that… do you know why the Geth were here in the first place?"

Liara shook her head. "No, I do not."

"Okay… how's your mother?" Shepard asked, trying to keep an eye on the other three milling about behind her. She could trust them, she knew that much, but she didn't expect them to sit around and just… not mess around with things. She fully expected something to blow up if she so much as let them out of her sight for more than half a moment.

"What does my mother have to do with this?" Liara asked in shock, "We haven't spoken for years!"

Shepard groaned awkwardly. "Well she's sorta teamed up with a rogue Spectre named Saren and they've teamed up with the Geth to bring back these things called 'Reapers' and they're basically on a warpath to destroy civilisation as we know it. Oh and he has some sort of vendetta against Humanity." she explained, grimacing. "It's kinda complicated and to be honest, a lot of us were worried that you would be working with your mother."

Liara's face saddened. "We were not… on good terms with each other when we last spoke. I promise you, I do not know what my mother is up to and I most certainly do not approve of it! Geth, outside the Veil, only looking to destroy organic life? I would never want a part in that!"

"Okay, okay, I believe you." Shepard took a calming breath. "Alright, how do I-"

She was interrupted by a massive explosion and a horrible screeching- like a train of old being derailed. The caverns shook and Shepard swore she could hear magma bubbling away. She turned to glare angrily at the ground team, only to find them missing.

"Tali did it!" Tessa's young voice called up from below.

"_You_ suggested this!" the Quarian yelled right back.

"We're _all_ in trouble, now shut up and let's go save that archaeologist!" Garrus scolded them.

Shepard groaned and facepalmed. Liara looked at her in bewilderment.

"Just don't ask." Shepard muttered, sighing. "So how do I get you out of there?" she asked, spying the rest of the squad coming into view from the other side of the force field. Why there was an elevator there, she'd never know.

"There's an orange button on that console over there," Liara tried to point at it with her head but failed miserably. "That one should release the barriers."

"I've got it!" Tessa cried out happily, leaping up to the console and slamming her fist down on the button. Dr. T'Soni fell down with a yelp of surprise as the shimmering blue fields collapsed, letting Shepard stomp up to her team and glare at them.

"What the hell happened?" she demanded, ignoring another burst of shaking.

"Let's get out of here first!" Tali suggested, suddenly feeling very claustrophobic. The others agreed and Tessa helped Liara up before dragging her to the elevator.

"For the record," the Mirage started, "It wasn't my idea to turn on the giant space laser."

-.-.-.-

Kaidan stumbled as the ground shook violently, sending him shoulder-first into a pile of rocks. A sniper round flew through the air where his head had been just moments earlier, a blue trail left behind it.

"I didn't do it!" Ashley called out when the shaking stopped. She scrambled to get to her feet and take out the Geth sniper that had been gunning for the Lieutenant.

"I don't care right now," Kaidan shouted, "We need to get out of here, _fast!_" he readjusted the backpack that contained the strange device they'd found in the vault. Getting it open had been relatively easy; once Ashley had noticed the door seemed to react to biotic energy, he'd launched a Throw at it and it'd opened up.

Inside there was a small pedestal, with a gold and white device floating above it with an emerald core. Rocks had invaded the room, and judging by the disembodied hand that had fallen next to it, there used to be a statue in the room as well.

Wrex, of course, had offered to loot it, on the grounds that he could 'live through a lot more than you scrawny whelps'. Later he'd shared about how even through the thick Krogan armour the device had burned him.

"_Kaidan, this is Shepard. We've got the Doctor slash archaeologist slash- oh hell… Seriously?_" Shepard's transmission was cut off by a burst of static and gunfire.

"Sorry Commander, there's some interference." Kaidan replied, one finger on his ear as he leaned over and shot wildly at the Geth who'd managed to escape the attention of Ashley and Wrex. His helmet had been smashed earlier at some point, he couldn't exactly remember when. "We've got the contents of the vault and we're heading back to the Normandy." He was glad he'd managed to salvage the earpiece though.

"_… __we've poss-… active volcan-… GODDAMNIT TESSA! Wou-… get out of there!_" Shepard transmitted between static invasions. Kaidan recognised most of what she was trying to say, though.

"Ashley, Wrex, if we don't get out of here soon we're going to be dealing with a full-blown volcanic eruption!" he yelled, hoping the other two got his message.

If they did, the only indication was they'd started taking more risks to kill the Geth faster.

-.-.-.-

Back on the Normandy, now in low orbit around the planet, the entire ground crew plus Liara were in the conference room, sitting in a circle. Except for Tessa, who was floating in the air in front of the hologram projectors sitting in the Lotus position with her helmet off. She seemed to be meditating.

"_Commander, for future reference, flying through an exploding volcano is a bad idea. The magma tends to melt the hull and fry the sensors._" Joker said sarcastically over the comms.

"Yeah, yeah. I get it." Shepard waved her hand dismissively. "I'll get you a medal or something later."

"_Awesome. I prefer gold over silver, y'know._" Everyone could hear Joker's triumphant smirk.

"Maybe I'll just get you a 'best pilot' mug instead," Shepard grumbled, though a small smile was tugging at the corner of her mouth.

"_Oooh, that's even better! I've never gotten a mug before._" Joker actually sounded more enthusiastic about the mug that he did the gold medal. A small click informed the crew that Joker was finally off the comms.

"Right, time for debrief." Shepard started, getting up and rubbing her hands together. "We ploughed through a ton of Geth, accidentally blew up some Prothean ruins-"

Liara made a small whimpering sound.

"-saved the good Doctor T'Soni, retrieved an artefact from what we assume was a Prothean vault offsite, and barely escaped with our lives." Shepard finished, all smiles and rainbows. Then her expression darkened and the crew could feel the air temperature drop by a few degrees. "So why do I feel like this mission was a complete failure?" she growled.

Tessa opened one eye, not moving much. "I'm guessing it's because of all the destruction."

"Disobedience?" Garrus questioned, thinking of when they thought it was a good idea to mess about with the mining laser.

"Because the aliens screwed up?" Ashley muttered angrily, although she said it _very_ quietly.

"Because we're no closer to taking out Saren." Kaidan stated, as though he knew the answer already.

"Yes." Shepard nodded. "You're all right. Except Ashley."

"Hey!"

The Commander glared at each of them, looking them in the eye until they backed down. Only Wrex and Tessa held her gaze long enough for Shepard to look away to glare at someone else. "The collateral damage caused was catastrophic. Some of the most intact Prothean ruins found this century are _destroyed_ because of what happened here today." she put her hands on her hips and looked intimidating as all hell. "And as for your teamwork skills-"

Liara opened her mouth to say something, but quickly shut it and went back to gazing at the floor guiltily when Shepard glared in her general direction.

"You're all dreadful." Shepard gestured to Tessa in particular. "Wrex, you've been a problem ever since Chora's Den when it comes to following orders, generalised or not-"

Wrex grunted but otherwise kept quiet.

"Ashley, your prejudices are getting in the way. You and Wrex barely worked cohesively down on Therum."

Ashley angrily muttered something that might have been an apology.

"Tali, you were more concerned about getting Twitch off your back than you were about your teammate's wellbeing."

Tali sulked and grumbled about 'bosh'teting Synthetics'.

"Garrus… you were actually pretty good when it came to teamwork. I think. Kaidan too." Shepard thought about it. "Garrus, Kaidan, you two were the most reasonable and least disruptive people down there. Thanks."

Garrus gave a surprised smile and shared a quick glance with Kaidan before the sober mood hit him again and he remembered to look guilty.

"Liara- can't say much, but you weren't too big a burden on the team, considering your condition." Shepard nodded in the Asari's direction. "But you, Tessa,"

Tessa winced perceptively. "Sorry," she said, "I-"

"Save it." Shepard held up a hand. "We're going to be having a very long conversation about your combat abilities later. Your teamwork skills are… next to nothing."

Tessa wanted to reply but that glare… her mom had used it against her so many times it was hard to fight it, even though Shepard _wasn't_ her mom, as she had to remind herself constantly.

"I understand that your standard of combat is also different, but _leaping off on your own_ is completely out of the question!" Shepard exclaimed. "You stick with the team or else! If something happens, like an _erupting volcano_, if you aren't with the team when we get picked up for evac, you're going to be left behind."

The Tenno's shoulders sagged. She'd forgotten that her Liset was back at the Citadel. "Sorry."

"So, all in all, good job everyone, we did well." Shepard congratulated everyone. "But the method sorely needs work." she growled, reminding everyone that just a job well done wasn't good enough. "Dismissed."

Everyone except Tessa and Liara left the room. Shepard turned to them and took a deep breath. "Liara," she began, "While it's great that you're not working with your mother in this crazy scheme, I don't exactly have room on my ship for…" she tried to find a way to say it without being offensive and failed.

"Do not worry about me being useless, Commander," Liara assured her, "I am a Prothean expert and I will do my utmost best to help you with whatever I can."

Shepard raised an eyebrow but the slight grimace didn't leave her face.

"I am also a powerful biotic," Liara pushed, "I've had to deal with my fair share of combat before. Pirates and native wildlife, mercenary groups, I can hold my own."

Shepard nodded slightly. "I guess so. Kaidan, Wrex, and I are about as far as the biotics on my team gets."

Liara looked at Shepard in shock. "You're a biotic?" she asked, very surprised.

Shepard nodded, smirking. "I got the implants and the basic training, but I found my skill was in the Infiltrator role," she explained. "I use a pistol for close range and snipe the rest. I don't really use my biotics much."

"Why not, though? The ability to move things with merely a thought-"

Shepard shrugged. "I don't know. If I ever get taken prisoner or something I'll have an extra trick up my sleeve. That and my emotions tend to screw with them…" she rubbed the back of her head. "Alright. Congratulations, Liara T'Soni, you are now a member of the Normandy's ground crew."

Liara smiled and tried to do a human salute but somehow managed to poke herself in the eye instead.

"Yeeaaaaah no. Don't worry about saluting or anything. We're a pretty non-regulation bunch." Shepard smirked. "I've asked Pressly to organise some kind of containment for the artefact we picked up from the vault, but if you want to continue your studies of it or whatever, the room behind the medlab is free."

"Thank you, Commander Shepard." Liara nodded and took her leave. Almost the moment she'd left, Joker's voice came through on the comms again.

"_Commander, the Council wants to chat. Should I forward it to you or what?_"

"Bring 'em up in the conference room." Shepard ordered, shooing Tessa to the side.

The Citadel Council's holographic selves jumped into reality in front of Shepard. Sparatus, the Turian, Tevos the Asari, and the Salarian one who's name Shepard could never remember. It might be Valern or something.

"_Shepard, we got your report._" Tevos started gracefully, before Sparatus butted in.

"_Did you really have to destroy the Prothean ruins, Shepard?_" he demanded angrily, causing Tevos to shoot a glare at him.

Shepard rolled her eyes and folded her arms. She was rather sick of the Council's narrow-minded bullshit already. "I don't have enough firepower on my side to destroy those ruins. There was some seismic activity that managed to kickstart the dormant volcano they were stuck in." she stated, keeping emotions and opinions out of her explanation.

Sparatus muttered something but relented. "_Alright. I guess the ruins were doomed anyway, considering the Geth were there._"

"Exactly. We've picked up Liara T'Soni; she's not with her mother and she's quite adamant that the two weren't exactly friendly last time they met." Shepard reported. "The Geth were there to take her to her mother against her will, or they were going to simply kill her. I'm keeping her on the ship for reasons you'll find enclosed in the report."

Tevos nodded. "_Good work. We don't have any other leads on Saren at this time, and we would like you to return to the Citadel for some… secure discussions._"

Valern peeked out from under his hood at the Asari. "_Interesting way of putting it._" he commented.

"Do you think this has anything to do with me?" Tessa whispered from her seat, out of view from the projector's return camera.

"Shush," Shepard gave Tessa a quick glance before returning her full attention to the Council.

"_There have been numerous Geth sightings across the Terminus systems,_" Sparatus told her, "_But so far none planet-side._"

Shepard nodded. "Awesome. I'll come visit the Citadel for resupply and Intel. My crew could use a couple days of shore leave or boot camp; I can't decide which."

"_Godspeed, Shepard._" Valern nodded to her, cutting the transmission.

There was some blissful silence for a few moments.

"Who's Saren?" Tessa asked.

-.-.-.-

The ride to the Citadel was relatively peaceful. Shepard decided to hold off on the lecture with Tessa in order to get some sleep, and aside from Kaidan and Liara, the rest of the ground crew were back to playing poker and sharing war stories.

"Seriously?" Ashley asked in disbelief, "You're the _only_ Krogan to have killed a Maw in your Rite of Passage?"

Wrex nodded, looking pretty pleased with himself. "Bet none of you can say the same."

"I managed to blow up a Dreadnaught," Tessa said thoughtfully, thinking back to when Vay Hek had tried to blow up the Relays, the Tenno hubs, not the Mass Relays, with his Balor Formorians. Unfortunately the stubborn old fool had yet to learn that pissing off a hive of Tenno was a bad idea.

Garrus looked at her. "Are you sure?"

"It might have been considered a supercarrier. I dunno." Tessa shrugged. "Then again, I only contributed to that one."

"Then it doesn't count," Wrex chuckled. "Best solo achievements!" he raised his fist. "Taking out a Maw singlehandedly in my Rite of Passage.

Most of the others recognised this ploy, it was a common game of sorts among Krogan. When the group managed to not fight each other long enough to get bored, they often started a bragging circle of one-up-manship to pass the time.

Only occasionally did things get blown out of proportion and into the land of complete and utter bullshit.

"I took down an entire smuggling ring back when I was in C-Sec." Garrus raised his fist. "It went so well that I got promoted to a three-quarters desk-job and saddled with so much red tape that the most action I've gotten since then was assaulting Chora's Den with Shepard."

Tali nervously raised her fist to join the other two. "I managed to salvage a Geth memory core that contained evidence against Saren…"

Wrex grunted. "Not exactly a momentous achievement but important all the same."

Ashley held up her fist. "Dismantled five or six nukes with Kaidan."

Wrex gave her look, one eye-ridge raised. "You guys don't get this thing very well, do you?"

Ashley rolled her eyes in response. "Fine. I saved a colony from a Geth invasion."

"Oooh, that sounds much more impressive," Garrus nodded, getting what Wrex was talking about, before his mouth dropped open in shock. "THIS IS A KROGAN LITERATURE GAME?!"

The Krogan in the room chuckled. "Shh, it's a secret though." he told them. "If anybody ever figured that out, we'd stop playing."

Tessa held up her fist. "I annihilated an entire infestation of a sentient plague that turned the corpses of my fallen enemies against me." she added.

Garrus looked at her evenly. "Somehow that doesn't surprise me."

-.-.-.-

Upstairs, Liara studied the strange device and chatted with her fellow Doctor Chakwas.

Shepard failed to get to sleep and sat outside her room talking with Kaidan about his biotic training. A cheeky question about his treatments for the migraines with Chakwas told her that Kaidan could never settle down for a desk job or go for the geeky girl; he preferred the adventurous women.

They had a six or so hour trip back to the Citadel. Shepard was convinced that she could talk to Kaidan for an hour to exhaust herself and then sleep the rest of the trip.

She didn't plan for him being so gosh darn interesting.

She laughed along with his jokes as he recalled his time on the station she couldn't care to remember the name of. She slipped in a wry comment with a cheeky smirk where she could; she'd served with the Lieutenant for longer than any of the other ground crew on the ship. He knew she was just teasing.

They moved into the Captain's Cabin for a nicer seat and some drinks from the mini-fridge Shepard had somehow convinced Anderson to install a while back. They looked out the window at the passing nebulae clouds, all many different colours of the rainbow.

"It's beautiful out there…" Shepard murmured, taking in a deep breath and enjoying the view.

"It can never be as beautiful as you, Kara," Kaidan told her softly, putting down his drink and moving his hand over the tiny gap between them to take hers. They both knew the alcohol was getting to their heads.

Neither of them gave a damn.

-.-.-.-

The mission on Therum had exhausted them all, whether they'd played a great role in it or not. The heat from the volcanic planet had gotten to all of them. Ashley and Tessa were sprawled out on one couch, Tessa huddled into a little ball in Ashley's arms. Wrex snored loudly, spread out on the other end. One hand was brushing against the floor, one leg over the armrest and the other over the back of the couch.

On the other couch, Garrus was in one corner, one arm resting on the armrest, the other wrapped around Tali, who was leaning her head on his shoulder and was very nearly sitting in his lap.

The requisitions officer across the room had plenty of blackmail material in the form of pictures taken during the trip. His favourite had been the game of Marco-Polo where Tessa was blindfolded and the rest of the team were scrambling away from her. Because Tessa was so much shorter than the rest of the team, they realised that she tended to grab or tag them in inappropriate places. This was only found out after Ashley had gotten caught.

There were several other photos he liked. Such as Wrex trying to get Tessa off him while she climbed all over his bulky frame. Tali and Garrus cuddling on the couch, asleep. Everyone's face when Garrus had won the poker once again.

Tessa was the first one to wake up, surprisingly. She looked around groggily, trying to figure out what'd happened last night. She vaguely remembered a game of truth or dare that had turned into a miniature brawl and thrown accusations.

The Tenno girl barely managed to detangle herself from Ashley without waking her. She got up, yawned and stretched and scratched at her scalp. Her hair was an absolute mess, her balance was off, and she was pretty sure they'd just entered a new gravity well that was stronger than the Normandy's artificial stuff.

She went over to the elevator, yawning again as she pressed the button to go up. The elevators here took sooooooooo loooooooooooooong… she could see the walls and the tiles went up so painfully slow. It took almost a minute to go up like five meters. She could have just run up the wall and flipped over in just a couple of seconds.

"Hi," she waved at Liara, who was sitting at the hologram table eating something. Judging by the many boxes of cereal and the milk cartons, she'd been eating a lot.

Liara's face went purple as she tried to hide her face in the bowl. When she finally swallowed, her face was the normal bright blue it should have been, barring a few spots. "Hello."

Tessa walked over and inspected the boxes, finding nothing in them but empty packaging. One of the cartons of milk was empty and the other had barely a quarter left in it. She noticed that Liara had a bit of a bulge in her midsection.

"I apologise for my gluttony, I don't know how long I was stuck in that barrier on Therum but I've just realised how famished I've been," Liara explained glumly, staring into her bowl guiltily.

Dr. Chakwas must have overheard her, because she rolled her eyes as she came out of the medlab to join the pair. "Don't feel bad, Liara, you've been through a horrible ordeal and you need to keep your strength up if you're going to be joining the Commander planet-side." Chakwas rubbed Liara's back reassuringly. "We're almost at the Citadel for resupply anyway. Stock rotation and whatnot, you're doing us a favour," she smiled.

Liara wasn't so sure though. "If you say so… I do not know if I left you any," she frowned. "And now I feel rather bloated." Her face _was_ turning slightly green-tinged.

"Don't worry about it. It's best if you have a rest, now." Chakwas advised, taking the bowl away and replacing it with a sturdy bag she had in reserve for crewmembers who got motion sickness. As rare as someone who did have motion sickness actually getting sick on the Normandy was, it did happen.

Liara trudged away unsteadily as Chakwas helped herself to a bowl of what looked like exotic chocolate rice pops.

Tessa looked at the bowl of food, intrigued. She'd never really eaten anything before. "Do you know where I can find Shepard?" she asked, running her hands through her hair and trying to tie it back into pigtails like she normally had it. She didn't like leaving it straight. It was too long and pink and she just found it unappealing. And it curled weirdly.

Chakwas pointed to the Captain's Cabin with her spoon before shrugging. "Odd. Kaidan's usually right there…" but her words were lost as Tessa had already left her.

Tenno had no concept of knocking. Or privacy. It was one of the main problems of being stuck in a Warframe for most of their lives; the most intimate thing one could barge in on was a private conversation or a kiss. Due to their muted nerves and the Technocyte virus effectively making them infertile, sex and procreation were nearly forgotten practices.

So Tessa promptly turned around and left when she found the two people she'd previously thought of as her parents in bed together naked. She walked stiffly back to the table where Chakwas was, a few shades paler than when she left.

Chakwas knew exactly what that meant and used her omni-tool to close and lock the door to Shepard's room. She offered some chocolate pops to Tessa who just numbly shook her head.

Tessa couldn't decide if she wanted to hyperventilate or go into shock or faint or what.

"We'll be docking at the Citadel in half an hour," Chakwas told her between mouthfuls. "It'll be a good chance to get a breath of fresh air."

Tessa stared at her. She silently asked that question that Chakwas really didn't want to answer. "Okay." she replied dumbly. Chakwas guessed that her brain had shorted out and the girl was running on autopilot right now.

"Tell me about your friends back home," Chakwas ordered. She knew that in situations like this, it was good to keep the patient focussed on something. Even if the doctor had no idea what said patient would be talking about, it would keep her mind off the traumatisation of finding her parents in bed.

"There was an Ember named Chandra…" Tessa started, a little hazily. "She was nice. Liked burning things."

"What's an Ember?" Chakwas asked, curious. She could gather that it was something to do with fire, easily enough, but now her interested was stoked.

"Flame-based Warframe." Tessa explained. "I'm a Mirage, a light-based Warframe. Embers are typically female, and… hang on a second," Tessa dug around in the pouches at her waist, pulling out another small disk like she'd left in the medlab. She put it on the table and a small holographic figure popped up, in full colour, almost solid.

The clawed feet and hands, the flamboyant thigh-armour, the sharply angular Phoenix helmet, it was Chandra the Ember juggling fireballs.

"Amazing…" Chakwas mumbled, forgetting her mouth was full. She quickly swallowed. "How many kinds of Warframes are there?" she asked.

Tessa shrugged. "Twenty or so. Almost everyone I meet is older than me…" she saddened, thinking about it. "In the last thirty-something years, only seven or eight Tenno have been born. We don't get assigned a Warframe until we're at least ten years old; if it's done any earlier we're prone to change and possibly being in the wrong Warframe."

"What happens if you get given the wrong Warframe?"

"Aside from shit hitting the fan? I dunno. Tenno lives are too valuable to waste just to see what happens if we get in the wrong frame." Tessa grimaced. "I'm the youngest… there's Zen, Kress, Mitch, Kythe, and those the only names I can remember."

Chakwas risked bringing Shepard into the conversation. "What Warframes were your parents in?"

"Kara's a Valkyr, and Kaidan's an Oberon." Tessa poked the holographic Ember and it changed into two images, one of the red-and-black Valkyr and a grey-white-and-purple Oberon. One looked fierce yet strangely calm, her clawed hands down by her sides, ready and waiting to rip flesh from bone. Half her head seemed to be missing its outer layer. A closely-knit armoured skull-cover could be seen.

The Oberon was strange, to say the least. His legs appeared to end in hooves, a toga or some kind of cloak was draping from his waist, and the stag-like helmet all seemed to scream 'Paladin' at Chakwas. His white armour with grey undertones contrasted with the purple highlights.

Chakwas gasped at the intricacy of it all, and the massive differences between the two holograms and the girl in front of her. "What do they do? What defines them?" she asked.

Tessa pointed to the Oberon. "Dad's a paladin-based frame. He smites the bad guys with holy fire, blah blah blah, very noble, hallowed ground, renewal, healing his allies and punishing his enemies." She rested her head on her folded arms on the table, occasionally poking the holograms to switch to something else. "Mom's a Valkyr… I'm told they're best described as a 'highly mobile flying ball of rage'. The Corpus found the first Valkyr and experimented on her Warframe. All the Valkyrs we've made since then have been copied from her…"

Chakwas frowned. "All Valkyrs have been tortured?"

Tessa shook her head quickly. "No! No, no, no, no… the damage done to the first one uhh… whaddayacallit… the damage done to the first one got inherited by all the Valkyr frames made after, because we don't have access to the original Warframe, we have to go by what we had available, and that was the tortured frame Alad V was messing around with."

"Who's Alad V?"

"Corpus scientist who tries to experiment on Warframes. Especially live ones." Tessa scowled. "The Lotus has been trying to get his co-ordinates so we can finally kill him, but there's some kind of cloning going on because he always comes back mere hours after we killed him."

Dr. Chakwas was a little concerned about how casually this girl talked about death. "You don't seem at all concerned by the amount of death and destruction that does on around you."

"Yeah, well, I was born into a world where the entire solar system is at war, I was bred to be a warrior of unmatchable skill, so yeah, it sucks, but I enjoy my job sometimes." Tessa admitted. "Blowing up stuff can be fun. Blowing up inhumane monsters who would torture you for fun or profit and sometimes both is just… satisfying."

Chakwas thought about it hard, before she shook her head and went back to eating. "It's not my place to judge what you do."

Tessa smirked. "Good."

"_All hands brace for docking. We've reached the Citadel._" Joker announced. He was very good at that.

Tessa got up, yawned and stretched again. "Maybe I should visit Elilia," she muttered walking away towards the airlock. She made her way through the CIC, getting little more than cursory glances from most of the crew. When she pressed the button to open up the airlock to get outside, though, the balding Navigator Pressly decided to make his presence known.

"Miss," he started, "I'm afraid you can't go ashore until we've cleared it with the Commanding Officer."

Tessa looked at him for a moment before doing her best impression of 'young and innocent child'. "But Mommy and Daddy are in bed," she told him, pulling out puppy-kubrow eyes, playing with her fingers nervously, and her lips trembling. She looked excessively adorable, as one of the women manning the control panels saw her and really desperately wanted to cuddle her and ask if she could keep her.

Pressly raised an eyebrow at the display. "So the Commander and the Lieutenant, eh?"

Tessa grumped, realising her tactic had failed. "Yeah. So can I go now, or what?"

"Nope. Not yet, anyway. Go down to the hangar and wake up your friends while I deal with Shepard," Pressly ordered, pointing to the CIC. Tessa grumbled the entire way but went willingly.

-.-.-.-

Tessa looked at the sleeping ground crew and tapped her chin, thinking. The requisitions officer, Jerry, stood next to her, equally thoughtful.

"You thinking what I'm thinking?" he asked, looking at her.

Tessa shook her head. "Your version doesn't involve loud explosions, does it?"

"Nope. Just some ice-cold water and a bucket."

"But that'll ruin the couches…"

"Well I've got an airhorn, if you're interested."

"Very."

Tessa took the offered airhorn and activated Hall of Mirrors, ignoring the other guy's shocked exclamations. Now she had five airhorns. She grinned evilly, sitting on the table and holding out the horn, her clone mimicking her.

These things were fog-horn rated, so when Tessa pressed the button, _everyone_ within a mile knew it.

Dismissing her clones, Tessa stumbled around and tried to hand back the airhorn. She didn't make it past the Mako before she flopped down on the floor, unable to judge which way was which. The poor girl was dimly aware of some muffled noises behind her.

-.-.-.-

Pressly leaned against the console, shaking his head viciously to clear it. What the hell _was_ that?

-.-.-.-

Shepard shot up, completely awake, trying to stop herself from hyperventilating. She held the covers over her excessively moving chest as Kaidan scrambled awake next to her.

"What in god's name _was that_?!" Shepard asked, her voice sounding dull.

Kaidan rubbed at his eyes, propping himself up next to her. "I'd say it's that foghorn Jerry got last week…" he groaned. When he'd finally gotten himself awake enough to realise he was in bed, naked, with his Commanding Officer, he facepalmed.

"What?" Shepard asked him, confused.

"Isn't it against regulations to date a superior officer?" Kaidan asked, not daring to look at her.

"Dunno," Shepard shrugged, smiling. "But as a Spectre, I don't give a damn." She moved Kaidan's hand aside so she could plant a kiss on his rather nice lips.

"_Hey Commander,_" Joker's voice invaded the room like a bad smell, "_We're at the Citadel and-_"

"Busy!" Shepard yelled at him.

"_Some of the crew-_"

"Good god, man, she said she's busy!" Kaidan supported Shepard, thoroughly annoyed at Joker.

"_Oh. Wow. That's a mental image I did _not_ need. Ever. Y'know what? I'm just gonna tell Pressly he's in charge._"

"Bloody-" Shepard started muttering, before Joker continued.

"_Have fun, etcetera, use protection, and don't mind the Admiral waiting outside the airlock._"

Shepard sighed and flopped back onto the bed, defeated. "Goddamnit…"

Kaidan lay next to her, propped up on one elbow. "We could always… come back to it later," he suggested. "If the Council sends you anywhere, it's three hours of uninterrupted peace from here to the nearest Relay."

Shepard looked at him and chuckled, letting it turn into a full laugh. "Oh, Kaidan," she said, pulling him in, "I'm going to hold you to that." She kissed him, sealing the deal.

-.-.-.-

Shepard found the Admiral, and decided that she didn't like him very much. First he was rude to her and insulted the ship, then he demanded access for a surprise inspection. She couldn't exactly refuse him. But when he came back and started insulting the ship- _her_ ship, then Shepard got mad.

And then the idiot went and started calling her out on the crew.

"A Turian? A Krogan? A _Quarian_? An Asari?" he asked rhetorically. "Commander Shepard, what are you thinking?"

Shepard growled. "They're an effective team and if you have a problem with it, tell me now or forever keep your goddamn mouth shut."

"Aren't you concerned about all their foreigners on your ship at all?"

"Y'know, you forgot the Tenno." Tessa muttered sadly from behind Shepard. She was hiding in the airlock hallway thing, waiting to get away.

"And children! Why have you got a young child on board?" the Admiral asked, gesturing to Tessa.

"Hey!"

Shepard deemed that this man had stepped over the line. "Yes, I get that for the price of this one ship we could have had hundreds, and that you don't appreciate stealth, and you're annoyed that I got the Normandy instead of you," she stepped forward, blocking his view of Tessa, "But unless you're gonna go after Saren yourself, _BUGGER OFF!_" she yelled, pointing to the exit. "This 'child' is probably the most goddamn destructive person on the ship. The Turian's a detective who can sift through data like no one else. The Quarian's the best damn mechanic this ship has ever had the pleasure of being fixed by. The Krogan is damn dangerous and one of the best CQC guys I've ever worked with." Shepard poked the Admiral's chest angrily with every point.

The poor man barely managed to maintain his glare.

"If you want to shit-talk my operation, go ahead. I'll let the ground crew deal with you next time." Shepard growled, storming off to the elevator.

The Admiral glared her back, before looking at Tessa with the same horrible gaze.

Tessa whistled in admiration. "I woulda just punched ya." she remarked.

-.-.-.-

Three figures waited for the moment they could put their plan into action. Two of them were young; requiring the help of the third.

"We'll have our window in five minutes." The tall one announced. "Get into position, boys, we don't want to miss this one."

"I wonder what's on the other side." The solidly built one said, consulting a recording of events.

"The one we're looking for is on the other side," the third one, a fit man, barely older than a teenager, reprimanded the second. "If she survived."

"Quiet," the tall one ordered. "Jems, start it up."

The third one looked down at a photo he'd taken of him and her. It was old, taken two years ago. "We're coming for you," he whispered, holding it close as though it would take him to her.

-.-.-.-

**Please, review! I know I've messed up a whole buncha shit (as the reviews for the previous chapter have shown) and while this story is set, I plan on a rewritten version at some point when this is over. Practice makes perfect, right? **

**~Pyro**


	3. Chapter 3

**Slowly but surely we're making our way to Feros and Noveria. Just stopping for some shore leave while everyone tries to figure out where the hell Saren is! :D **

**~Pyro**

-.-.-.-

Zen woke slowly. His head hurt. "Guys?" he asked, hoping the other two were still on the comms.

"Well… that was an experience and a half, if I must say." One of them replied. His voice was mature, commanding, and had more than a hint of refined upper-class accent; it must have been Vladimir Thatch's.

"Urgh. At least you were awake for it." Kress groaned. The Frost Prime seemed severely annoyed that he'd been knocked out for the trip.

"Well we made it…" Zen muttered, getting up. Everything ached. "I think."

Outside he could see a grand space station, looking like an open-air Dojo or one of the Relays. It was _big_.

"What do we do now though?" Kress asked, his helmet appearing next to Thatch's on Zen's HUD. "We seem to have lost power."

"I can fix that," Thatch announced. True to his word, he Banished the Lisets again. Being in the Rift allowed them to gather the ambient energy and kick-start their systems. Thatch suspected that Tessa would have suffered an entire caboodle of problems with her Liset without a re-Banishing to help restart everything.

Zen wondered what he'd convinced himself into. Running through a Solar Rail with his Liset Banished by a Limbo (a helpful chap by the name Thatch who said he owed Tessa's mother a favour), just to find a girl he'd known ages ago. Three Tenno, an Ash, a Frost Prime, and a Limbo. Two of whom were merely in their late teenage years.

"Thanks. How do we find Tessa?" Kress asked, his Liset doing a barrel roll.

"She's quite disruptive, I heard." Thatch mused. "She's a bit of a… what did you say she was, Zen?"

"Thunder Mirage." Zen replied dully. "She figured out how to maximise the Thunderbolt mod on her Attica and… yeah. Thunder Mirage." He couldn't get it out of his head that somewhere out here Tessa was… he had no idea what she was doing. Wreaking havoc or enjoying herself, free from the wars of the Origin system, he couldn't even begin to wonder. All he knew was that he wanted to see her safe again.

"Then let us ask the natives. Perhaps they will be willing to tell us if they've found her." Thatch suggested. He had a heavy accent, and a rather posh one at that. Zen thought it might have been an old English one, but he couldn't be sure.

"What makes you think there's natives?" Zen asked, looking back at the massive space station.

"Oh, just the interceptor fighters and that blooming great cruiser over there," Thatch highlighted the ugly ship on the Cell's HUDs. "I'm not sure who designed that dreadful thing-"

"Contacts!" Kress announced, sending his Liset into a dive. The others followed his lead, ducking and diving to keep the new fighter-type ships following them from getting a lock-on.

"I'm a Stealth Ship, _NOT A COMBAT POD!_" Zen could hear Jems yell at Thatch. She sounded rather pissed off. Zen's own Cephalon hadn't shown any excessive emotion like that to him _ever_.

"Hey, that's actually a good idea." Zen realised. "Engage cloak," he ordered his Cephalon, Miana. The Liset disappeared from radar, visual, and most forms of detection that didn't involve physically hitting it. Sadly, Grineer scout ships were annoyingly competent at kamikaze runs.

Zen saw the other two Lisets… and then he didn't.

The fighters, interceptors, whatever they were ceased to follow them as soon as they'd disappeared. Obviously confused, they returned to… wherever they were before Kress had warned them that they were there.

"Fantastic! We've completely given them the slip," Thatch said, slightly mystified by how well it'd worked. "Now, in order to find our missing Mirage, we'll probably need to land."

"Where though?" Kress asked, highlighting a few areas he'd found. "This one seems the most appropriate, considering the limitations involved with Liset docking," he mentioned, zooming in on one particular area.

"Then that's where we'll start." Zen decided.

-.-.-.-

Dr. Michel had been pretty well, lately. Only a day or two ago she'd survived a hostage situation, helped save some lives, and had even found some Turian chocolate. She didn't know why she bought it, but it just came as such an odd impulse. Turians had chocolate?

So she was very surprised when three armoured humanoids phased into existence outside her medical clinic. The thing that confused her most was that they were all armoured similarly to that girl who'd helped diffuse the hostage situation. What was her name… Tessa?

She boldly approached the trio, who were all speaking some kind of gibberish. Michel didn't really expect them to speak English like the other girl had but she had to try.

"Um, excuse me?" she asked, trying to get their attention.

The one with the top hat stared at her for just long enough to make her wonder if these three were hostile. Then he raised his arms and cheered. "Oh, _yes_! English! Oh this is _wonderful_, the implications are just astounding-"

The shirtless one- at least he appeared shirtless, the entirety of his torso armour was smooth and unbroken- cleared his throat.

"Ah, yes, well." He tipped his hat to her and bowed deeply. "Vladimir Thatch, at your service," he introduced himself. Thatch was quite the charmer, he believed. "My friends and I are looking for a young girl armoured in a similar attire to us, would you happen to have any information regarding our lost fellow?"

Michel nodded. "Yes, actually. I'm Doctor Michel, I run this med clinic," she pointed to the clinic, making sure that if the trio ever needed her again they'd know where to find her. "Your friend passed through here a couple of days ago, and managed to save me from a couple of thugs."

"Ah, Tessa, fighting the good fight I see." Thatch seemed to smile heartily. He took a small disk from his sleeve and turned it on, letting a floating image of Tessa appear.

"Yes! That's her!"

The shirtless one yelled something that didn't hit the translator, looking like he wanted to charge at her and demand information but Thatch stopped him. "Zen, be respectful. Kress, don't go wandering off," he told them. "Do you happen to know where she went?" he asked her softly.

Michel shook her head. "Last I heard she was with Commander Shepard. She's the first Human Spectre."

Thatch seemed to frown. "Hmm… thank you for your help. It is greatly appreciated, madam."

"I can point you towards the Embassies if you'd like," Michel offered, summoning an aircar from one of the Citadel travel terminals. "The Human Embassy should have someone who can contact Shepard for you."

"My dear, you are one of the kindest souls I have met for a long time," Thatch said, not believing his luck. They'd only been here an hour and they were already hot on Tessa's trail.

-.-.-.-

In the Human Embassy, Udina looked like he was about to have an aneurism. Anderson just chuckled. A dashing magician, complete with top hat, had walked in accompanied by a young man in a full coat and a kid that looked like a barebones shirtless ninja.

"What are you doing here?" Udina seethed. He was sick of all these people.

"Hello, good sirs. I am Vladimir Thatch. We are looking for a colleague of ours, perhaps you might know her," the tophatted man said, bowing lightly and tipping his hat to them. "A young Mirage named Tessa has been through here-"

"I know her," Anderson interrupted. "She's safe with Shepard." Safe might not have been the right word to use, considering Shepard's mission, but he was trying to be reassuring here.

Thatch chuckled. "I doubt that very much. Safe is not something Tenno are accustomed to, nor something that remains around them. You could even say we have an aura of trouble," he seemed to smile under his intricate helmet. "Mirages tend to do this even more than usual."

"Would you like me to ask Shepard to bring her back?" Anderson asked, pointing his thumb at the holoprojector.

"That would be lovely." Thatch nodded. While Anderson was busy trying to call Shepard, who seemed to be unavailable, Thatch decided to try talking to Udina. "Hello. You seem stressed. Is there anything I can do to help?"

Udina scowled. "No."

"Very well." Thatch stepped back to Zen and Kress. Only, Kress was missing. "Zen," he asked, speaking in Orokin to keep their conversation private, "Where did Kress go?"

Zen shrugged. He was too excited about seeing Tessa safe to care about Kress.

-.-.-.-

"Hello."

The voice startled the Asari receptionist. She hadn't heard anyone approach and was busy reading her book. "Uh, hello," she greeted the man. Ava spoke in English, hoping that her language classes might actually be used one day. The man- or was he a young man? - wore a black suit of what she guessed what armour, adorned with gold and covered with intricate white marks. "Is there anything I can help you with?"

"Yes," the man, who seemed to be more of a teenager, possibly Human, replied. "I was wondering what you are." He didn't say it maliciously, or with any ill intent. It made her wonder why he needed to ask it though.

"I am an Asari," she answered. "Are you Human?" she asked, curious.

"Not quite. I'm Tenno." The being seemed to smile. He tilted his head to one side. "You're very interesting. I've met a few aliens but all of them were merely animals; I never expected to find that intelligent life in the galaxy would look so Human."

Ava bristled. "We were here first."

"Apologies. I'm merely accustomed to humanoid things. It feels… foreign, to describe things like us as asarinoid." he said, thinking. "It was a pleasure to meet you," he nodded, leaving.

Ava was just befuddled.

-.-.-.-

"Kress, you must return to us at once!" Thatch demanded through the comms. "We are so close to finding Tessa and I do not want to lose you to this rabble!"

"Hm, yeah, huh… this place is very interesting. They call it a Presidium." Kress seemed to completely ignore Thatch, instead talking to himself.

"We'll launch a rescue mission for you later." Thatch promised sarcastically. Now he understood what Trin and Ves were talking about when they shared their troubles with him. Raising children was hard, raising Tenno children with insatiable curiosities was downright frustrating. Especially when there was a mission to get back to.

"Sorry, I can't reach Shepard," Anderson announced his return apologetically. Nobody blamed him. "The Normandy's docked but Pressly told me she already left. Tessa, too."

"Darn!" Thatch exclaimed. "I was absolutely sure-"

"I found her." Kress interrupted.

-.-.-.-

"Hey Tessa!" Kress yelled, spotting the Mirage walking across a bridge in front of a weird statue. "Tessa!"

Tessa finally noticed him waving madly, and waved back. She didn't have access to his comm channel, but she could yell just fine. "Kress?! What are you doing here?!"

"We came to find _you_!" Kress yelled back, sprinting and wall-running his way to the other end of the bridge. He jogged to catch up to her.

"What- how?" Tessa couldn't believe it. She gave him a big hug, but Kress stood almost a head taller than her and he was still growing.

Kress returned the embrace with vigour. "Zen-"

"Zen's here too?!" Tessa looked overjoyed and amazed at the same time.

"Yes," Kress smiled, disengaging his helmet. His snow-white eyes greeted her warmly, though his irises were grey and clouded as though he were blind. "Zen organised a Limbo to help us recreate your accident. He's called Vladimir Thatch."

Tessa frowned. "Wasn't he that one who pissed off mom?"

Kress grinned. "That's the one."

"Okay so why are _you_ here?" Tessa asked. "You're not the kind of guy to just run off on a rescue mission to save some damsel who's causing distress."

"I was curious about what was on the other side." Kress told her, finally stepping back. His long dark-grey hair fell over his face, rustled slightly by the soft breeze that permeated the Presidium. "So far I have discovered several species of alien, all of whom are intelligent enough to communicate, and a massive space station that really should have no atmosphere at all and yet it does."

"I found robots to kill." Tessa shrugged. "Oh, and this woman who's practically identical to mom, and a guy who's identical to my dad."

Kress tilted his head. "Interesting. I would love to do a DNA check on them. Perhaps we could even use their genetic samples to produce a sibling for you, one who isn't Tenno."

Tessa looked conflicted. "I don't know… I'm not sure they're ready to be parents yet."

"Fair enough." Kress nodded. "Come, we must meet up with Zen and Thatch."

-.-.-.-

Kaidan had been a little shocked when Pressly had made the news. "To all crew, you have two days of shore leave available if you wish to take it. Shepard just wants to make sure you can all be back on the ship and ready for action within a couple of hours if an emergency arises."

There had been a lot of cheering and half the crew went straight to Chora's Den. The rest either went to visit family and friends or Flux for a drink.

Tessa, obviously, had followed the Commander off the ship right off the bat. The rest of the ground crew had decided to have a little party to get Liara introduced to the gang at Flux. She was regretting her oversized breakfast before she was even out the door. And then three quarters of the normal crew decided to tag along.

Kaidan just wanted Shepard to come back. He didn't know how, but they'd managed to go from longstanding teammate friends to… more than friends. Much more. He hoped he wasn't being selfish by assuming the Commander returned his feelings.

He made his way to the Presidium, hoping to catch Anderson at the Embassy or Diplomat's Bar. Tessa's head of very bright hair seemed to be the first thing he noticed when he left the elevator. Kaidan wasn't sure why she was talking with this other boy, but it seemed to ignite a few nerves he wasn't even sure were his.

But, she was happy. Kaidan didn't want to ruin that, she could take care of herself.

He took a deep breath and blew it out, puffing up his cheeks. What the heck was he thinking? Why was he so worried about Tessa? Taking a closer look at the boy, the young man she was so ungracefully chatting with, Kaidan decided that he knew why he didn't like him.

Then he remembered some of the old teenage romance books he'd read and how all fathers would almost threaten their daughter's boyfriend with death if he so much as looked at her wrong. The most disturbing thing was he felt like he'd just experienced that same overprotectiveness.

Kaidan shook his head. Shepard would never let them adopt her.

-.-.-.-

Thatch strode out of the Embassy full of confidence, joy, and the full assurance that Tessa had been found. The doors opened automatically to let him pass, and he bumped straight into a face he never thought he'd see again.

His shock was enough to stunt his reaction time as the pair fell down in a tangled heap of limbs and tophat.

"Hey! Watch where you're walking, will ya?" The grumpy voice growled at him.

Thatch picked himself up, before giving her a hand up. "My apologies, Kara. I simply had no idea that you would be here!" he exclaimed, unfolding his helmet. His electric blue eyes and perfectly groomed rust-brown hair seemed to glow with new life as he drank in the smells and fresh air of the Citadel.

The redheaded woman accepted the hand up but glared at him still. "How do you know my name?"

Thatch's jaw dropped open. "It's me! Vladimir Thatch! How could you not remember me?"

If looks could kill he'd be dead ten times over by now. Twenty if Udina's looks counted.

"I seriously have no idea who you are." Kara ground her teeth. She picked up his tophat and thrust it at his chest. "Or _what_ you are."

Thatch griped his hat, saddened, yet somehow hopeful. Kara had been rather pissed off at him last time they'd met, and it was common knowledge not to piss of a Valkyr- "Kara, where is your Warframe?" he gaped, realising that the woman in front of him was clothed, _not_ armoured.

Kara frowned, before realisation dawned on her face. "Oooohhhh, you're like Tessa, aren't you? Tenno?"

The Limbo was at a loss for words. Kara thought she was _HUMAN_?! "But-"

Kara shut him up with a look. A look that promised a world of hurt if he continued down this path. "I'm Human. Tessa's Tenno. Apparently I have an identical twin in another universe that gave birth to her."

Thatch was deeply saddened by this news. "I thought-"

"Yeah. She did too."

"Oh." He didn't really know how to continue this conversation, so he brought his helmet back up and tipped his hat to her. "M'Lady," he said, bowing before leaving. This place was just _full_ of surprises.

-.-.-.-

When Shepard got to the Embassy to talk to Anderson, she received yet another shock. It was a very dull and half-expected shock.

She found Udina bristling as usual behind his desk, Anderson sipping coffee while looking out at the Presidium, and some armoured teenager leaning against the wall sending blank-faced glares at Udina. His helmet was surprisingly… minimalist, compared to Tessa's and whatisname tophat's. No eyes, either.

"You're Tenno, right?" she asked, pointing at the kid. He nodded, talking gibberish. Shepard held up a hand, "I can't understand whatever language you're speaking. I assume you can understand English?" another nod. "Good. Stay." she commanded, allowing herself a tiny smirk when the kid gestured at her, like he was trying to say _seriously?! I came all the way across the galaxy for this?!_

She honestly didn't blame him.

"Shepard, it's good to see you again," Anderson smiled warmly, offering her a mug of freshly-brewed coffee.

"Same," Shepard grinned, sipping at the coffee. "I take it him and that tophatted fool I met outside were looking for Tessa?"

"The one and only." Anderson confirmed. "I can't help but wonder, though, if there's going to be more of them coming." Seeing Shepard's look of confusion, he delved deeper. "First Tessa, now these three-"

Shepard nearly spat her coffee in shock. "There's _three_ of them?!" she hadn't found the other one and after Therum she was pretty much risking her neck letting Tessa walk free on the Citadel. If there were four people who could do damage like she could…

"And apparently they have no way back to wherever it is they came from." Anderson said, causing Shepard to groan loudly. The Tenno in the room yelled something at them, but nobody could understand him.

"I don't want to have to deal with any more of these Tenno if I can help it!" she replied, ignoring the kid's outburst.

"I know," Anderson sighed heavily. "They are, even for civilians, extremely undisciplined."

Shepard thought about it. "Maybe they just have a different discipline. Chakwas was telling me that Tenno have zero social time back where they're from." she jerked her head at the other Tenno, who folded his arms, irritated. One of them was smoking, oddly enough. "Like Smokey over there."

Smokey grunted and left.

-.-.-.-

Zen couldn't believe how rude the people here were. Sure, the Syndicate members who hated him were just as bad, if not worse, but these particular humans had absolutely no reason to hate hi-

Oh.

That was Tessa's mother.

He mentally facepalmed as he explored, following a couple of wanderers into what looked like a Clan Gathering, but with less gathering and more pointless standing around. Zen spotted one almost-familiar face leaning on a bench, drinking from a purple glass.

Unfortunately, he spotted Zen, too. A frown crossed his handsome features for a moment, before it passed and he beckoned Zen over to him. "C'mere," he grunted.

Zen cautiously approached, moving to sit on one of the stools next to the strangely familiar man. "Do you understand Orokin?" he asked.

The man shook his head. "No idea what you just said." he chuckled, chugging the rest of his drink. "You're… Tenno, right?" he remarked, his words only a touch slurred by his drink.

Zen did the only thing he could do, and nodded.

"That's nice… I'll have to take you back to our ship so you can meet Tessa," he said, slightly sadly. "I think you two would…" he stopped there, obviously having no idea what the two would do, be, or get up to.

"I have been looking for her," Zen told him, forgetting that the man couldn't understand him for a moment.

"Okay… I'm Kaidan-"

"WHAT?!" Zen shouted, drawing several angry glares from other patrons. "You're her _father_?!"

Kaidan looked at him. "Well…. Shit. I'm guessing you know me as Tessa's dad then."

Zen nodded.

Kaidan swore quietly.

-.-.-.-

"So what's it like in this corner of the multiverse?" Kress asked, his eyes twinkling with curiosity.

Tessa frowned at him. "Multiverse?"

Kress smiled and nodded, clasping his hands together as he explained. "Well, I've done some research and I've discovered that this place has an Earth. It has the entire Origin System, but not as we know it."

"Uhhh… I'm not sure I follow."

Kress tilted his head, an innocent yet very annoying habit of his. "There is an Origin System, and yet no Technocyte, Corpus, Orokin, Grineer, or even Tenno in this universe."

Tessa nodded slowly.

"To top it all off, there are _identical_ people here. Kara and Kaidan. They exist here, and they exist here, but they do not exist together." Kress finished. "The multiverse theory is that there is an infinite number of universes, all identical bar a point in their history where something changed."

The Mirage in front of him scratched her head uncertainly. "So… we're in the wrong universe, is what you're saying."

Kress nodded. "Yes. But, we are not in the _wrong_ universe, just a parallel universe that mimics our own in several areas."

"We're in a parallel universe. Just… leave it at that, please," Tessa scrunched up her face. "Any more and you're gonna make my brain hurt."

Kress smiled. It was an innocent smile. "My question still stands; what's it like here in this universe?"

Tessa looked out over the gardens of the Presidium, leaning against the railing and folding her arms. "It's weird, to be honest. It's like… there's this one guy, Saren, who not-mom is chasing after, but instead of giving her the resources she needs to get it done, she's expected to do it on her own. The only help they gave her is Saren's old job, which basically means she's above the law."

Kress whistled. "Wow. That does seem rather shortsighted."

Tessa rolled her eyes. "Tell me about it. All I've done since I got here is argue, sleep, blow shit up, and argue even _more_."

"Can I join you?" Kress asked, grinning madly.

"You'll have to take it up with not-mom, but if she says yes then I don't see why not." Tessa shrugged.

The Frost Prime looked at her uncertainly. "Why do you keep calling her that, 'not-mom'?"

"Because she's made it very clear where she stands on that." Tessa scowled.

Kress tried to be sympathetic but in hindsight, he might have been sympathetic for the wrong person to be comforting Tessa. "She's a Valkyr, and a stressed Valkyr is generally an angry and impulsive one," he frowned. "She likely didn't mean to hurt you like that."

"Yeah, right," Tessa muttered, her voice breaking as she fought back tears. "You don't know what it's like to hear your mother scream at you. Screaming that she's disowned you."

Kress lowered his gaze to the floor. "You're right. I don't. I'm sorry." he apologised, pulling her into a great big bear hug. Tessa sobbed into his shoulder, ignoring several varying gazes from pedestrians passing by.

"Now let's go find the others." Kress suggested.

-.-.-.-

Just as Zen thought he was done dealing with Tessa's parents, Kara decided to visit.

So he was stuck between a half-drunk Oberon and a completely sober and over-stressed Valkyr. He would honestly have preferred to be stuck between a rock and a hard place. It was much safer between a rock and a hard place.

"Kaidan?"

The chuckling out-of-frame Oberon silenced himself immediately and gazed at Kara. "Oh, hey Shepard!" he greeted her with a goofy smile. Zen could feel himself burning in embarrassment, head to toe. He sorely wished he could just Smoke Bomb his way out of here, but considering the fact that this was a Diplomat's Bar (which he'd recently learned), a bomb would be a _very_ bad idea.

"_What_ are you doing?" Kara asked him, her voice filled with hidden malice. Malice hidden just well enough for a half-drunk man to miss.

"Drinkin' with my new buddy… buddy." Kaidan replied, calling Zen 'buddy' because he realised he hadn't gotten his name yet.

"My name is _Zen_." the Tenno growled at them. Maybe he should have learned English. As far as he knew, only Kress and a couple of the other new-gens had bothered.

"Kaidan."

"Yup?"

"…" Kara was silent for a moment, before she drew a hand down her face and sighed. "Forget it."

"Okay."

Zen had the sneaking suspicion that Kaidan wasn't in Kara's good books anymore.

-.-.-.-

"The Geth were weird though." Tessa remarked, picking up a Turian plushie from the basket of this interesting souvenir shop she and Kress had decided to check out. "They were like… skeleton robots with armour and flashlight heads."

Kress raised an eyebrow. "Have you still got your mission logs?"

"Yeah, I never delete them. Why?" Tessa asked, putting the plushie under her arm. Then deciding that her arm was too mellow of a place, she cuddled it fiercely.

"I would like to review them later, if possible," Kress smiled. He looked through a glass cabinet filled with model replicas of ships. He frowned when he saw one he recognised. "I remember this one…" he said, pointing to it.

A shop assistant, a friendly Turian woman, speedwalked over to them, sensing customer interest. "Do you like that one, huh?" she asked, her mandibles flared. Kress assumed it was a smile, because what kind of shop assistant doesn't spend 24/7 smiling?

"Not particularly. I thought it was rather ugly, to be honest." Kress said evenly, still eyeing the ship. "It doesn't seem to have any guns, I have no idea what that great missing chunk of the midsection is for, and it almost resembles crosshairs."

The assistant's smile faltered for just a moment. "That's the Destiny Ascension, flagship of the Citadel fleet and an Asari Dreadnaught to boot."

Kress frowned. "That's a Dreadnaught?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. "I assumed it was a heavy cruiser or frigate of some sort."

"I'd like to buy this please," Tessa squeaked, holding up the plushie and trying to draw the attention away from her accidentally rude friend.

Once outside the shop, Tessa glared at her very rude friend. "Did you seriously have to insult that thing?"

Kress held up his hands. "Hey, I had no idea it was the 'biggest, best, most amazing ship ever designed'." he commented. "Besides, size isn't everything."

Tessa snorted. "Yeah, right."

"True!" Kress argued.

This time a random onlooker butted in with a smirk. "Honey, the only time a guy says that size doesn't matter, it's because he's not big enough," she winked at them, before going back to reading her book.

"Hah!" Tessa pointed at Kress, triumphant. Kress just smiled that innocent smile until her mind clicked into place. "Wait, no. EW! EW, EW, EW! KRESS!" she shrieked, covering her face with the plushie while the Frost Prime laughed his head off.

-.-.-.-

Thatch didn't have any money. Nor could he fathom how to pickpocket anyone. But looking in at a café, he so dearly wished he had enough to purchase a cup of tea. He couldn't remember ever having a drink of the delicious beverage, but he knew deep in his heart that pre-cryosleep, he'd had one of the most stupendous cups he'd ever enjoyed.

It was with a sad and heavy heart he turned around to go back to the Embassies.

-.-.-.-

Zen was feeling more and more closed in with every passing moment. He was now stuck between a three-quarters drunk Oberon and an even drunker Valkyr. This was _not_ how he'd planned to spend whatever time he had to with Tessa's parents.

Kara was slouched over, taking shots of various liquids, half of which _glowed_, and slurring her words badly. It also appeared like she couldn't think straight either. "Put more of the stuff in… in the thing more stuff goes in," she slurred, holding up her glass.

"I think you've had enough, ma'am," the bartender chuckled, shaking his head, but smiling all the same.

"I'll decide when I've had enuff," Kara slurred, plopping her glass down. "More shtuff!" she ordered, pointing to the glass and looking very determined.

The bartender looked thoughtful for a moment. "Alright. Whaddaya say to giving this new mix a taste test for me?" he asked, taking away Kara's small glass and replacing it with a slightly larger bottle, lid off. Zen suspected this mix wasn't 'new' at all.

"Hmmkay," Kara grabbed the light-blue drink and downed it in one go. "It'sh…" she tried to say, before her eyes rolled back in her head and she fell off her seat and onto the floor, snoring.

Barkeep winked at Zen. "Asari drink. Made especially for the persistent. They call it a Blue Lotus," he told him, grinning. "It's come in handy these past couple o' years."

Zen was a little stunned by the name._ Blue Lotus._ He'd have to tell Kress about that one.

"You want anything?"

Zen shook his head, but pointed to the discarded bottle and then Kaidan, who nursing his own drink a little more guardedly since Kara had shown up. It seemed like he'd remembered something slightly sobering. He glanced at her, lying on the floor and gaped.

"Here you go pal, on the house," the bartender slid another small bottle of Blue Lotus to Kaidan, who downed it slowly.

"It's nice…" he murmured, his eyes fluttering closed before he too was leaning on the bar, asleep.

Zen couldn't be sure, though. Should he be relieved? Or absolutely terrified? He shook the thought from his mind as he bodily dragged Kara's limp body to a relatively soft couch nestled into one corner near the bar. She seemed happy.

Kaidan's sleeping corpse followed soon after, Zen propping them up against each other. He looked at the arrangement for a moment, thinking something was off. Then, finally realising what it was, he moved Kaidan's arms away from Kara's chest and put them into more of a sitting position.

They'd thank him later.

Or murder him.

-.-.-.-

Tessa and Kress walked across a dimly-lit bridge, admiring the view of space and the streams of hovercars zooming below them.

"Where are we, anyway?" Tessa asked, looking around, wondering how they'd gotten lost.

Kress looked up at the lewd sign and read the writing underneath; it was surprisingly in English. "'Chora's Den'" he read, shrugging. He could hear odd music emanating from the club. He could also see several blue bodies gyrating in extremely tight and very _revealing_ leather suits.

"Shou-"

"We're definitely in the wrong sector," Kress stated, cutting Tessa off as he dragged her away before she caught sight of the many alien, and some Human, strippers.

"Hey!" Tessa cried out, surprised at Kress's sudden energy. She knew that Frosts of _any_ kind were _not_ energizer bunnies or idle twitchers. And she only knew _that_ because she'd seen Kythe, that airheaded Zephyr, trying to get Kress to dance with her. In the end, Vess, a female Nekros, had taken the dance.

"Which way to the Presidium?" Kress asked a local, who pointed him in some direction down by an area he recognised as where he landed with the other two. He ignored Tessa's outcries, deciding that sometimes it was better _not to know_.

"Damnit Kress, slow down! My legs aren't as long as yours!" Tessa complained. She hated being dragged along. She barely managed to break away when another hand clamped down on her shoulder. Whipping around, prepared to use her Turian plushie as a weapon, she was faced with an odd sight. "Hunh?"

"Not one word." Garrus warned her, likely scowling. "Who's your friend?" he asked, nodding towards Kress, who'd finally realised Tessa wasn't with him anymore.

Tessa looked at him, beckoning him over. "Garrus, this is Kress. He's a Frost Prime. Kress, this is Garrus. He's a Turian." Tessa introduced them. "What're you doing down here, Garrus?"

"I could ask you the same thing." Garrus retorted, pointing down the hall they'd come from. "I know for a fact that the only thing down there is Chora's Den. I don't know if anything's changed since we took out Fist but I don't think anyone is going to like the idea of you-" he paused, glancing at Kress, "-either of you being there."

Tessa just shrugged and rolled her eyes like _I have absolutely no idea what anyone is talking about anymore_ and started walking in circles around them.

Kress and Garrus stared at each other for a long while. The tension in the air was palpable only by a select few.

Kress decided to break the silence in the only way he knew how; bluntly and traumatically. "So why is your face covered in pink paint?"

-.-.-.-

Anderson looked at the pair on the couch snoring and groaned. He glanced at the 'Tenno' kid who was at the bar, playing what looked like a long-running game of paper-scissors-rock with the bartender.

He silently debated between bringing Shepard and Kaidan back to the Embassy, leaving them here, or seeing if he could have whatever they were having.

The Tenno that Shepard had appropriately named Smokey saluted to Anderson with two fingers, almost like a hand-gun. His entire arm appeared to be shrouded in an aura of smoke.

The former Captain took one final glance at Shepard and decided it'd be best if he went and raided Udina's drink cabinet.

And angry Udina was much easier to deal with than an angry Shepard.

-.-.-.-

The music was loud, the bass was pumping, and the people were dancing or drinking or gambling or some combination of all three. Liara swore she could see one person dancing and drinking while gambling over at the machines.

She still didn't see why it was such a good idea to hold down Garrus and paint his face pink. As an archaeologist, she'd never naturally been a social butterfly, as the Humans called it. It was still a mystery to her how Tali had ended up leaning against her, hiccupping and whispering things to do with programming loops, mainframes, and debug schedules.

Seeing Garrus re-enter the bar-casino _whatever_ this place was- _by the goddess, must it be so loud in here?-_ warmed Liara's heart just the tiny bit she needed not to hurl.

A slightly-synthetic gasp came from her left as someone poked her sore, churning gut. "Liara… are y- _*hic*_ are you pregnant?" Tali rambled, suddenly unhealthily interested in the small undigested lump resting in Liara's stomach. She was slightly worried that she might have eaten dextro rations in her mad rush for sustenance this morning.

"No, Tali, I'm not," Liara sighed, gently pushing the drunk Quarian away from her midsection. "What have you been drinking?" she asked, concerned for the woman's health.

"Turian brandy, thrice filtered and _emergency induction port_," Tali slurred, holding up a straw.

Liara was absolutely sure Tali was forgetting words in her sentence structure now. Were all drunk people this hard to deal with?

"Hey, Liara." Garrus greeted, sitting down next to her, wet washcloth in hand. "I'm glad this is just Human facepaint; Turian facepaint isn't made to wash off so easily," he remarked, eyeing the growing pink stain on the cloth with distaste.

Liara smiled. "Pink isn't your colour."

"No, it's _mine_," Tessa hissed, plomping down in one of the seats roughly. Liara couldn't quite see for sure, but it looked like she was trying to squeeze the death out of a plushie Garrus. Tessa was quitw right about that colour being hers; if her hair and eyes were enough to convince Liara then her attitude and personality _were_.

A tall, dark-grey haired young man stepped in behind her, looking around, his eyes filled to the brim with curiosity. Liara didn't recognise him. She wasn't sure she'd be able to recognise many of the crewmembers aboard the Normandy anyway.

"Hello," she said to the newcomer.

"Hi there," he replied, holding out his hand. "I'm Kress. You must be Liara," he smiled warmly.

Liara shook his hand, nodding. "I am. Do I know you from anywhere?"

Kress shook his head. "I doubt it. I only got here a few hours ago. This place-"

"The Citadel." Garrus reminded him, his voice muffled by washcloth.

"The Citadel," Kress amended, "is amazing. A gigantic open-air spacestation that somehow has atmosphere, and even has its own defence fleet." The Frost didn't see Tessa's warning glare as he continued, "Even if it has the ugliest and most impractical flagship I've ever seen. The-"

Liara cut him off with a cry of disbelief. "You think the Destiny Ascension is _ugly_? _Impractical_?" The pinnacle of Asari war technology, artistry, and engineering all lumped into one nearly-oversized Dreadnaught and this kid thought it was a _mistake_?

Kress looked at like she should already know the answer. He spoke noticeably slower. "Yes," he nodded, "It looks like a set of crosshairs, there are no weapons available for immediate use, and it has that great big hole in the middle. It is stupendously short, compared to its height and width. Those… _prongs_," he frowned slightly, as though there were a bad taste on his tongue, "serve no purpose. To call that a Dreadnaught is a gross misclassification. At best it is a glorified frigate, or maybe cruiser."

Everyone still sober enough to understand him, minus Tessa, stared at him in shock, their jaws hanging open and everything. Wrex, who was just sitting in the corner drinking Ryncol, chuckled.

Kress looked at them all. "What? It's true. I've been on light cruisers that could outgun, outrun, and maybe even out-tank that hunk of junk you call a Dreadnaught."

Reactions around the room varied from cries of disbelief to calls for more. A couple of Turians in particular were laughing their mandibles off. One of them immediately got slapped by an Asari, causing the other to howl even louder.

One of the Normandy crew was chortling to himself and pointing out Kress to his mates, who were too drunk to care. An Asari, likely to be rather tipsy, if her slight stumbles were anything to go by, went right up to Kress and headbutted him.

"Hey!" Kress yelped, tripping over his Warframe as he stumbled back.

"My sister's on that ship!" the Asari growled, pointing to the window in the completely wrong direction. "Quit insulting it!"

Tessa nodded thoughtfully, grinning at the way the woman had headbutted Kress. "I agree. Quit getting yourself in trouble, Kress," she told him, not bothering to give him a hand up.

As Kress crawled to his feet, muttering, he decided that publicly denouncing the Destiny Ascension would have to wait for now. He sat down next to Tessa, looking very much less serene than he did walking in. "Aliens are weird."

Garrus burst out guffawing. "That," he gasped, finding it hard to talk and laugh at the same time this was so spirits-damned funny, "is the best reaction to an Asari headbutting I have ever seen!"

Liara rolled her eyes and grabbed Tali to stop her falling off her seat. "Go dance," she told the Quarian, who'd been listening to the music and trying to hum along with it for the last five minutes. Tali enthusiastically made her way to the dance floor, only losing her footing once.

Kress hmphed, slumping in his seat. "You know, Tessa, I've been thinking-"

Tessa cringed. "Uh-oh."

Kress ignored her. "I've been thinking… we're young Tenno. We've never been into deep Cryosleep."

"Your point?" Tessa asked tiredly, much to Garrus's amusement. She whapped him in the face with the plushie.

"We've always relied on our Warframes for… life." Kress looked like he was about to get all existential on her. "I listen to the older ones, sometimes, and they always have these offhand remarks about… something. Thatch was moaning the other day 'my kingdom for a cup of tea'. Before you went missing, when I was on a mission with Kara, she took a particularly nasty hit to the back of head. At extraction she was muttering about needing a good bottle of vodka later."

Tessa stared at him blankly, while Liara and Garrus realised what Kress was talking about. "You two have never eaten or drunk _anything_?" Garrus asked, not really believing it.

When both kids stared at him, confused, he got his answer. "Perhaps alcohol isn't the best-" Liara tried fruitlessly to talk him out of it.

"Joe!" Garrus yelled over the music to one of the bartenders, who he knew back from his days in C-Sec, "Three Paradise Passions and a Steel Talon!" he ordered. Joe grinned and nodded, getting to work on the drinks.

Liara glared at him for cutting her off. "Perhaps alcohol isn't the best way to introduce them to-"

Garrus waved off her complaints easily. "Come on, Liara, they're unarmed, and we can keep them from getting into too much trouble," he coaxed her into it slowly. "Besides, we've all been stressed, these two included, and I doubt either of us would let them go overboard."

Liara had a bad feeling about this.

-.-.-.-

Three a half drinks later, Liara had no idea what she was thinking earlier. Watching Tessa try to dance was fun, if excessively cringe-worthy.

Eventually she fell over and Garrus had to help her back to the table. "Well… that was enlightening." he remarked, thoroughly shocked that _anyone_ could dance that badly.

"Hehhhh hehehheh…" Tessa giggled, cuddling her plushie. "You should see mom… she's _horrible_!" she squealed in laughter, leaning against Garrus for support.

Kress was sitting across from Liara, sipping at his drink occasionally like he was determined not to get tipsy. Liara found this extremely funny because after discovering the stinging fruity taste of a Paradise Passion, Kress had demanded shots of more drinks to taste. So far, in total, he'd managed to down more than the other three combined.

Liara was not embarrassed to admit that after getting a hold of the menu, she had ordered the drinks for him.

"How does this one taste?" she asked, pointing to a glowing white one. She had no idea what they did to make it glow, but she suspected it was in the glasses. They _were_ extraordinarily sturdy for bar glasses.

Kress hmmed, taking a sip, running it over his tongue. "It's…" he said slowly, deliberately, "… different."

Liara was disappointed in him. She knew she shouldn't be, as Kress had nothing to go off for his descriptions, but as inebriated as she was, she was very disappointed in him. "Give," she commanded, pointing to the same drink.

"Mmmmkay," Kress slid the shot-glass to her. His seat, oddly, was frosted over. It was almost snow-white with ice and almost seemed cold enough to be steaming like liquid nitrogen did.

Whatever the drink was, it tasted like cherries mixed with honey and something Liara couldn't identify.

She screwed her face up, staring at it, making some noise between a grunt and a hum. It was certainly _different_. Whether it was a different good or a different bad she couldn't tell.

"I feel haaaaappppppyyyyyyyyyyyy!" Tessa threw her arms up, accidentally throwing the plushie into the face of a returning Tali. The Quarian fell over with a plushie on her mask and didn't get up.

Garrus chuckled. "Yes, I suppose you would." He quietly sipped his own drink, enjoying it while he could. Back in C-Sec, he wasn't allowed to drink unless he was off-duty for the next three days. Suffice to say, he didn't get a lot of chances to go out drinking with friends.

Tonight, Flux was the place to be.

As the party started to dwindle down, some of the Normandy crew went over to the hotel next to Flux. Adams had made sure to rent enough rooms for everyone so that after the party, they'd wake up in a nice soft bed rather than on the floor of the Wards.

For the few could remember what had happened that night, it would be memories they'd treasure forever.

-.-.-.-

Thatch grumbled, sitting on a bench, watching the Presidium Lake with growing disappointment. He came here to find Tessa as a favour for Kara. That was, until he bumped into Kara, and discovered that she had either completely forgotten about who and what she was… or forgot to mention a twin sister somewhere in the galaxy.

This situation was not ideal. The artificial environment of the Citadel had changed to an 'evening' mode, causing the sky and ambient lighting to fade.

He enjoyed watching the stars. He only wished he could enjoy it with _her_.

Looking down, he opened up a small, chained, locket he had always kept hidden up his sleeve. In it was a tiny picture a woman Vladimir loved with all of his heart. She had been taken away from him by the Corpus, years ago. When he had found her, dead… it had ripped his very soul apart.

Thatch disengaged his helmet, setting his tophat to rest on the seat beside him. She had been the greatest Saryn he had ever known, ever loved. The way she joked with that brutish Rhino back in the day, arguing about bust sizes and muscled torsos. It brought tears to his eyes, remembering her.

He kissed the picture, gazing up to the stars. Her short hair, always swept back tight to her skull. Her bright blue eyes, an oddity among bright emerald greens of the Saryns, making her all the more precious. Her stern, commanding, yet soft, loving, and compassionate face.

And she brewed the best teas Thatch had ever tasted.

"I miss you so much, Benezia," Thatch whispered lovingly as he cried, holding the locket to his chest as though it would bring her back.

-.-.-.-

The next morning, several hours later, Shepard awoke. Why was she in the Diplomat's Bar? Looking around, she found Kaidan next to her, still snoring quietly, and Smokey the Tenno sitting opposite. His arms were crossed and his posture was slumped enough that she assumed he was asleep too.

Oddly, she felt refreshed. Getting up, yawning and stretching, Shepard realised she hadn't felt this rested since… well, she couldn't remember the last time she felt this good.

She noticed with a heavy heart that the Citadel's lighting had been set to 'morning', meaning she'd been asleep for well over twelve hours. In that time, Saren could have attacked and damn well annihilated almost any Alliance or alien colony he wanted.

Several other patrons of the bar were sitting around, some asleep, some awake, and some of them were waking up like Shepard was. She couldn't help but wonder if the Diplomat's Bar ever shut, or if this 'overnighters' thing was normal. One thing she remembered was that she'd been drinking pretty heavily with Kaidan.

Her omni-tool beeped at her, informing her that she had twelve- wait, no… _one hundred and twenty_ new messages. She barely even got ten over the course of a normal day!

Shepard sighed. Her work was never over. This was why she'd opted to stay in the grunt-plus division. She wasn't ready _or_ capable of dealing with all the stress that came with large-scale leadership. She just wanted to be in charge of her squad, working towards a clear objective, receiving the Intel and orders she needed to get the job done. Being the one who gave out the Intel, orders, and even the goddamn objectives made her… she couldn't explain it, but she just wasn't ready for this.

Twelve messages from Elilia, all asking where the hell she was, where the hell the new Tenno were, and why she so unresponsive? Shepard replied to the last one only. _Sorry, Elilia. I'm at the Diplomat's Bar- Presidium Embassies. One of the Tenno (Smokey) is here with me and I swear I can explain everything once you get here._

Her tool sent the message away with an immature little _*ding*_. Around seventy of the messages were from the ground crew. Absolutely none of them made sense, text wise. The pictures and videos they'd sent her though, had her nerves on edge.

Tessa dancing badly, some other kid looking kinda wasted with a veritable mountain of shot glasses next to him, Garrus with pink face paint instead of his normal blue, a video of Tali asking a sick-looking Liara if she was pregnant- Shepard couldn't help but snigger at that one- and an assortment of drunken (and sober) selfies taken… at a party in Flux.

Huh. So that was where everyone'd gone.

That other kid with the blind eyes and the dark-grey hair set off alarms in Shepard's head. He was kinda cute, in his own way, but his big heavy cloak thing- wait, _damnit_! Shepard mentally facepalmed. He was the third Tenno. Smokey, tophatter, and cutie.

Elilia was going to be hysterical.

-.-.-.-

When Tessa woke up in a bed next to Kress, with her head throbbing and no memory of what happened last night, she panicked. She leapt out of the bed- or tried to. Instead she got tangled up in the covers and managed to slam herself into the ground face-first.

Slowly freeing herself, Tessa managed to stand up… and immediately regretted it. She stumbled into the wall, her world spinning in ways it most definitely should _not_ have been. An odd, queasy feeling rose up in her gut, one that she didn't recognise.

"Wh-" she barely got half the word out before something was rocketing up her throat and she puked, hurling whatever it was she'd drunken and eaten onto the floor. When it was finally over, she fell backwards, landing on the floor and knocking over a small table, her back resting against what she assumed was an armchair or something.

It left an acidic taste in her mouth and her legs weak. She hadn't felt like this since Ordis woke her prematurely from a mission gone wrong.

And Kress was still in the bed, lying on his stomach and sleeping. Man, that kid could be stoic.

When Tessa finally found the strength to move, she decided not to. Her gut was still feeling funny-bad and she didn't want to puke again. She wrinkled her nose at the smell. It was disgusting. It wasn't as bad as some of the Grineer Galleons or Corpus sewerage systems, but it came a close second in her currently biased opinion.

She remembered that she _could_ contact the others without moving too much; she still had her omni-tool. But she didn't have any of their contact details. And Elilia's mind-meld had only given her so much information and how to operate an omni-tool was not in there.

Why'd she accept the drink, anyway? Tessa had to admit that she had been very curious about the concept of food and tastes and such, and that the experience was truly like nothing she'd ever done before, but if this was going to happen every time she ate or drank, _no thanks_.

Garrus must have been next door, because when the door opened, he didn't look all that surprised. "Are you okay?" he asked, eying the sickening puddle of puke in front of Tessa. He also noticed the trail of drool coming from the corner of her mouth.

Tessa shook her head, not trusting herself to speak.

"Need some help?" Garrus asked, stepping into the room.

Tessa nodded, before the sick feeling in her stomach intensified and something gurgled up her throat. She clamped her mouth shut, grimacing and fighting back tears as she cradled her stomach in one hand and covered her mouth with the other.

Garrus shot over, picking her up and taking her to the bathroom before she had a chance to realise what he was doing. He held her in front of the toilet, thankfully the lid was already open, holding her hair back. "Just let it all out," he advised, wincing as Tessa did just that.

When she eventually stopped, she slumped down against the bathtub, breathing heavily. "Thanks…" she groaned, still cradling her sore midsection. "Why does everything hurt?" she croaked.

Garrus hadn't been thinking of the aftereffects when he'd ordered them those drinks last night. Turian hangovers were surprisingly easy to deal with- something many other races were quite jealous of. He'd just taken a quick injection of whatever they called that stuff, he could never remember the name of it, but his friends back in C-Sec had always called it the 'Sobriety-Shot'. One shot, a couple of pills, and they'd be right as rain within ten minutes.

Aside from a small hell on the toilet as the toxins rushed to get out of his system, he felt about as good as he did before he went drinking. Due to this easy-fix, as it were, some Turians could fall into becoming an alcoholic quite easily.

"It's called a hangover," Garrus told her, kneeling next to her. "It's what happens the morning after you go drinking most of the time. I think Humans said it had something to do with dehydration."

Tessa just moaned in response.

"And that is the general feeling about it, yes." Garrus nodded. "Feeling better yet?"

"Noooo…" Tessa croaked, looking even paler than she had five minutes ago.

Garrus played with her hair as he talked. "Do Tenno normally get hangovers? I'd guess not, since you had no experience with food or drink before." Tessa shook her head. "I'll go get you some water, it might help."

-.-.-.-

Kress woke up slowly. Then he realised he was lying on his stomach- he'd never slept like that before. Usually it was on his back with his arms crossed in a Cryopod.

He pushed himself over, now staring at the ceiling. Or was it the roof? Kress couldn't be sure, but it almost looked like one of those things that beds had… those big ones that he'd seen in castles and whatnot in those old pictures…

The Frost slowly sat up, sitting against the wall. Wow, this room was a _mess_. It smelt horrible, too. The smell was an old one; almost like the rotting corpses of Drahk and Kubrow that had been left to die.

It was revolting. Kress could hear splashing noises, and could sense the humidity in the air of the room to his left. There were voices, but fuzzy and indistinct.

"Hello?" Kress enquired, his normally smooth voice almost gone. He was shocked at how he sounded, and then he realised why; it felt like someone had made him swallow gravel before cleaning his mouth and throat out with sandpaper.

The splashing stopped, as did the voices. Kress didn't like that. Moving to the side, he barely managed to get to his feet and stay there.

Now his head hurt too. It was like he had a migraine!

"Ah, you're awake," a dual-voice stated, setting Kress's nerves on edge as his entire body seemed to scream _CORPUS!_ at him. He spun around to face the intruder, before he groaned and clutched at his head. Damn, that hurt.

"Who?" he asked, grounding the word out. By the Orokin, why did everything have to ache like this?

"It's me, Garrus," the Turian reminded him. "How're you feeling?" he asked, beckoning him over before disappearing back into the bathroom. The steam was seeping out the top of the doorway, billowing into the bedroom.

"Like hell." Kress answered, staggering over. He had to lean against the doorframe to stay upright, fearing he'd lose his footing if he tried to move any more.

"Well, you haven't chucked your guts up yet so I'd say you're doing much better than Tessa." Garrus told him, his tone making the smirk very hard to miss. He was leaning over the bathtub, hands- _or is it talons?-_ in the water, his crouched form masking whoever was in the bath from Kress's failing vision. It must have been Tess in there, because Garrus immediately got splashed in the face. "Oh, cut that out."

"Unh." Tessa grunted at him. "Hey, Kress," she whispered. She didn't look too good. Her hair was all stingy, matted, and messy, despite most of it floating in the water.

Garrus got up and handed him a jug of clear liquid with ice in it. Kress was pretty sure it was just pure water. "Drink," he ordered, sitting on the corner of the bathtub.

Kress found it refreshing, awakening, and _so cold_. He closed his eyes in bliss as he drank the entire thing in one go over the course of a few minutes. All Frosts loved the cold; it was as revitalising as an adrenaline rush, and easily as refreshing a weeklong sleep. It was one of the reasons they were always in peak physical and mental condition; a Snowglobe could wash away the fatigue of battle instantly.

"Thank you," he said, putting the empty jug down and stretching. "That was really good."

He didn't understand why they both seemed to be staring at him in shock.

"So… you feel absolutely fine?" Garrus asked, pointing at the empty jug. Kress just nodded at him, grinning. He felt absolutely fine. Maybe even better. "So how do we do that for Tessa?"

Kress shrugged. "I'm not sure we could. I'm a Frost, she's a Mirage," he explained, "I like the cold, she's probably attracted to the light." On a hunch, he refilled the jug from the tap, dipping his finger in it and cooling it to the point where he had to lightly punch the surface to break the ice layer that'd formed.

Tessa reached for the water, and drank deeply from it when Kress had finally taken the hint and handed it over. When it was half empty, she waited until Garrus's attention was focused on Kress… and then threw it at him.

Garrus literally squawked in surprise and leapt up, scrambling as the cold hit him. His rapid movements caused him to slip on the tiled floor and land in an extremely undignified way. "Tessa!" he roared, rubbing his head.

Tessa giggled, letting it grow into all-out laughter. Kress just shook his head and smiled, helping Garrus to his feet. He whispered a quick something in his ear- or what he assumed was his ear. Most humanoid things would have ears on the side of their head, right?

Garrus nodded, chuckling evilly as Kress launched a bolt of electric blue energy into the bathwater. Tessa was immediately frozen in place, glaring at him as everything below her shoulders was encased in ice. "Kress…" she growled, channelling her inner Valkyr, which she likely inherited from her mother, through chattering teeth. "I'm going to kill you."

Kress smiled and tilted his head. "Okay."

-.-.-.-

Tali wasn't sure how she'd ended up in bed with Liara. She was even more confused about why Garrus was lying between them.

She'd been more than happy to send him to investigate the thump from the next room over.

But then he hadn't come back and she found herself missing him. She sat on the end of the bed, Liara still snoozing behind her, looking at the beautifully made Turian plushie she'd somehow acquired last night. Oddly, it reminded her of Garrus.

Tali had a small, mostly invisible, camera installed in her mask, right at eye-level. She had it recording constantly, every day, never stopping. At her hip was a small external drive specifically for the footage it captured. One drive would last her a month and a half, so she had to remember to swap them regularly.

It was times like this she found the little device invaluable.

She found herself turning purple with embarrassment, her face flushing more and more with every second of footage she watched. She definitely couldn't remember asking Liara if she was pregnant- though she did look over her shoulder to confirm that the incriminating bump was actually there. It still was.

Dancing, though, she remembered that. Tali felt that she was actually a pretty good dancer; and compared to several other patrons she'd apparently been watching, she was. How did they manage to stay up with only one set of knees? It was so confusing!

A couple more thumps from the other rooms around her brought Tali out of her daydreams, and Liara from her sleep.

"Oooohhh," the Asari moaned, trying to sit up, one hand on her temple. "By the goddess… what happened last night?" she asked, still not opening her eyes.

"You got pregnant," Tali answered, trying to hold back a snigger as Liara woke up completely.

"What?!" she exclaimed, her hands shooting to her stomach. The look of dread on her face was just priceless. "I- how-" Liara couldn't more than two words together before realisation crossed her features. "It's yours?" she whispered, pointing at Tali.

Tali burst into laughter. "No, no, it's not mine," she giggled. "I was just kidding. I don't know if you're really pregnant or not, and I'm not ready to be a mother. Or father," she added, remembering that Asari considered whichever parent didn't get pregnant to be the father.

Liara breathed a deep sigh of relief. "You had me worried for a moment," she admitted. Though, the lump in her stomach was still worrying her. "I don't _think_ I'm pregnant…" she mentioned, rubbing her belly.

Tali waved her hand dismissively. "Don't worry, I checked the data from the Normandy. You accidentally ate half a leftover dextro ration pack." the Quarian informed her. "It should come up again sometime this morning."

Liara looked positively green at that. "I think you might be right," she muttered, hand over her mouth as she sped off to the bathroom to hurl.

Tali didn't get hangovers. Her enviro-suit kept her hydrated and she was glad.

She still couldn't figure out the mystery of the Turian plushie though.

-.-.-.-

Elilia just waved her badge to the scanner at the door and waited patiently for the system to recognise her as C-Sec and to let her in already. The bar was closed, yes, but as a 'police' officer, she was allowed in outside business hours for security reasons.

That, and Shepard was apparently in there. That could only mean one thing; the Commander had gotten so drunk she'd been left in there as an Overnighter. And if she was an Overnighter, she probably wasn't keeping an eye on Tessa or any of the other three Tenno Anderson had reported to her.

The door finally opened, and Elilia strode in with confidence she knew she shouldn't have felt. Based on her lengthy discussions with Ordis in Tessa's Liset, Shepard had an extra-galactic, maybe even extra-universal clone by the name of Kara who was a warrior best-known for her temper.

"Elilia, hi!" Shepard smiled and waved. That threw Elilia off a little. Everything she knew about Shepard pointed to her not being the kind of person to _smile _and _wave_.

"Hello, Shepard," Elilia nodded, grabbing an empty seat and dragging it over to the Commander's table. Indeed 'Smokey' was there, his chest slowly rising and falling as though asleep. She couldn't tell thanks to his blank-faced helmet which reminded her of a featureless skull. "I see you have another one of the Tenno with you."

Shepard grimaced. "Yeah, he was here when I woke up," she explained. "Anyway, just like Tessa, he can understand English but can't speak it. I was hoping you could meld with him or something when he woke up."

Elilia nodded, rolling her eyes. Of course she would want her to meld with the Tenno. "I will," she promised. Though this time, she would keep it short and to the point; giving him the knowledge he needed of English and nothing else. She leaned on the table, bringing up a report on her omni-tool. "How have things been with Tessa?" she asked, hoping for the best.

Shepard whistled, leaning back against her couch. Elilia noticed with a raised eyebrow that the Lieutenant, Kaidan Alenko, was lying next to her, asleep. "Well, it's been disruptive as all hell." Shepard told her. "Apparently the other me drives horribly."

Elilia had seen both the Therum reports and Tessa's memories; she had no doubts that Shepard was a bad driver and that the Armature and Dropship kills were Tessa's. "I think it may be a trait you both share," she nodded, trying not to grimace. "You really do drive badly, Shepard."

Shepard just blew her off. "Whatever. Anyways, I spot Geth, Tessa summons _four clones of herself_, and just goes loose with that crossbow of hers. It fires _explosive bolts_," Shepard told her, very slowly and seriously. "It's like the arrows are made of C4!"

Elilia nodded, pulling a relevant memory from her meld with Tessa. "It's a Thunderbolt mod. All the arrows are explosive, but not all will trigger on impact. They _will_ chain-react though."

Shepard stared at her, jaw hanging open in disbelief.

"You'll catch flies like that, Shepard." Elilia told her, reaching over to shut the Commander's mouth.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Shepard asked, still in shock.

Elilia shook her head. "You've been in the field with her. What do you think?" she asked, leaning back in her seat. "Okay, as far as I've been told, there's now four Tenno on the Citadel."

Shepard nodded. "Tessa, Smokey, tophatter, and that cute one with the coat," she counted each one off on her fingers. "Tessa and cutie are in the hotel next to Flux-"

Elilia cringed. "That cannot be good."

Shepard nodded enthusiastically. "I know, right? Smokey's here," she poked the Tenno in the shoulder, causing him to snort in his sleep and shuffle away a little. "And tophatter is probably somewhere in the Presidium."

Not knowing what Shepard meant by 'tophatter', Elilia raised an eyebrow questioningly.

"Trust me, you'll understand when you meet him." Shepard waved. "Is it okay if I leave you here with Smokey and Kaidan?" she asked, "I have to go find Anderson and see if the Council's gotten any more leads on Saren."

Elilia nodded, letting Shepard get up and leave.

"By the way, I like your new uniform." Shepard smiled as she left. "It's very flattering."

It was true, since the fiasco with Tessa, Elilia had gotten a promotion to 'Special Situation Executor', allowing her what basically amounted to C-Sec's SpecTRes. She'd exchanged her old officer's uniform for a custom-made light combat weave. The undersuit was tight and form-fitting, yet gracefully flowing and elegant as most Asari hardsuits were. Overtop she had a human-design trenchcoat, tailored for her by a friend. It could stop a bullet, and the fabric had an internal dusting of Eezo, allowing her to brush off biotic attacks with ease. And it had the nicest colour scheme, too; black accentuated with intricate and beautiful patterns of light-blue.

"Thanks," Elilia smiled. Shepard didn't hear her, but she felt the need to say it all the same. Smokey was just waking up, so she heaved him into the couch and sat next to him. "Hey, don't fight it, and just relax," she told him. He nodded, slowly, as though slightly unsure. She tried her best to look approachable, and asked him to disengage his helmet.

Smokey was very handsome. She would be quick. Language, nothing more.

Elilia touched their foreheads together, and whispered, "Embrace Eternity."

-.-.-.-

Kaidan woke up to see the Tenno kid's skull-like mask right in his face. "Hey," he grunted, scrambling back.

"Hey. I'm Zen." the kid held out his hand, which Kaidan shook. "You're Tessa's father, right?"

He shook his head. "Nope. I'm just his identical same-name twin." Kaidan yawned. It looked like late-morning.

Zen seemed to relax. "Well, that's a relief."

Kaidan smirked. "Let me guess; you're trying to date her or something that her real dad wouldn't approve of?"

"Uhh… something like that, maybe."

-.-.-.-

Garrus and Kress had decided to leave Tessa in the frozen bathtub for a while. It was around about five seconds before they'd decided to help her out of there that Shepard showed up, they swear!

Shepard shot glares at the two nervous beings standing in the doorway while contemplating how concerned she should be about the girl encased in a bathtub of ice shivering with blue lips and pale skin. "Anybody care to explain?" she growled, pointing her thumb at Tessa.

"Aheh… well… I- uh, Kress-"

"I wouldn't have done it if you hadn't been so enthusiastic about it. I was only joking."

Shepard's enraged growling got their attention. "I don't care right now," she ground out, "You're both going to be punished. Now someone figure out a way to help Tessa out of there!" she bellowed at them, urging them into action.

Garrus ran off to get blankets and things that he thought could help melt the ice while Kress simply walked over, dipped his hands into the solid ice as though it were no more than warm water, and lifted Tessa out, bridal style.

"Th-th-th-th-thanks m-m-m-m-mom," Tessa chattered, looking like she didn't know if she should punch Kress or hug him. In the end she decided to boop his nose.  
>With her fist.<p>

"Hey," Kress looked at her like she was a misbehaving Kubrow puppy. Tessa cursed; she wasn't strong enough to do any damage to his smug little face.

Shepard reached out to touch Tessa, maybe hold her and help her get warm again, but the moment she touched the Warframe armour, her fingers turned blue and Shepard swore the ends had frostbit. "Ow, ow, ow," she muttered, sucking on her fingers to try warm them up again. "How cold _are_ you?" she asked.

Kress shrugged. "Too cold. It'd be helpful if we had an Ember or-" Tessa glared at him and he paused, "Or maybe I shouldn't have frozen you in the first place."

"M-m-m-m-m-much b-b-b-b-b-bet-t-t-t-t-t-ter…" Tessa shivered. She reached for pile of towels and blankets while Shepard tried to warn Garrus not to touch her.

"You'll get frostbite." was what she told him. Of course, Garrus ignored her and figured out for himself what frostbite does to Turians.

Kress smiled but didn't smirk at the display. "Fascinating," he whispered, putting Tessa down to one side before laying out the thick duvet, putting Tessa on it, and wrapping it around her until she felt like a baby swathed in sheets again. At least it started to warm her up.

Shepard sighed. "That looks comfy," she smirked. "Anyways, the reason I'm here; Kress, I'd like to recruit you."

Kress nodded. "Sure."

Shepard blinked at him. "What?"

"I said sure. Now that I'm here, I'd like to see the rest of it. Apparently you have FTL capable of taking you to other solar systems- even the other side of the galaxy!"

"Well, at least you're excited about it." Shepard muttered. "Okay then. I'm not sure Elilia wants me to reveal the Tenno species-"

"Sub-species." Kress interrupted, sitting down on a seat Garrus had dragged in. "We're a sub-species of Human. A branch of the evolutionary tree, if you will."

The three of them were sitting in a triangle with Tessa cocooned in the middle, occasionally grunting, moaning, or wiggling. Her hair still had icicles in it.

"… yeeaaaah, let's go with that. Elilia probably doesn't want to reveal the Tenno to the Council or the galaxy at large yet, since all this shit with Saren is going down." Shepard continued, making funny motions with her hand. "And unfortunately, one of the Alliance Admirals was let in on the whole Tenno thing so in order to get paperwork across, we need to forge some identities for you. It's best if we just use the truth, though."

Garrus seemed to frown. The part of him that used to be a cop wanted to arrest Shepard just for conspiring to make false IDs. The other part of him really didn't want the Tenno to be caught. The whole of him was confused. "What do you mean by using the truth?"

Shepard glanced at him. "Well, they're from a colony that's really far off in the middle of bloody nowhere and have been 'living under a rock' their entire lives. I'm recruiting them because they have extensive combat experience and are prone to causing trouble." She sent an extra-deathy death-glare at Kress, who just smiled in return. Damn, it was hard to stay mad at that kid.

"Will you need planets and co-ordinates and such?" Kress asked, curious. He'd never needed an ID before.

"Actually, just names, lineage and a DNA sample would be required." Shepard shook her head. "I know the DNA is going to be an issue," she said, cutting off Kress before he could even talk. "We'll use something else. I know Tessa's parents are Kara Shepard and Kaidan Alenko, although we might need to make up someone else since… I'm not a parent."

Garrus chuckled. "You two adopted. To this day you two consider it your best impulse rescue ever. After finding her stranded and alone on her home colony, you took her under your wing and have been dragging her around with you ever since."

Shepard gave him a funny look. "Yeah? Since when did this happen?"

"A couple of days ago. Probably on a quick stop to claim a garden world you found by chance on the way back from the Eden Prime slaughter." Garrus was scarily convincing with this story. "Instead of claiming it for the Alliance, you discovered an isolationist colony of ninjas-" Shepard gave him an 'are you shitting me?' look. "-or a colony of people practicing some monk-like things that happened to involve ninja-like origins."

"Much better." Shepard grinned.

"Of course, you only realised this after finding Tessa, getting confused, finding her parents dead, and the poor child suffering complete memory loss regarding them and most of her life as a way of dealing with the grief."

"Does that happen?" Kress asked, confused. "Total memory loss?"

Garrus nodded sadly. "It's a kind of post-traumatic stress disorder that's more common than you think. Back to this grand scheme, though; you adopted her with budding future husband Kaidan-"

"WHOA whoa whoa there, Garrus," Shepard held her hands up, cringing slightly, "Did you just propose for Kaidan?"

Garrus blinked. "Oops. It's a Human thing that one of the couple proposes to the other member, right?"

"Yes, Garrus, that's normally how it goes. Do Turians do it differently?"

"Not really. Although it's quite common that everyone else knows the couple are going to get married long before they themselves do," he explained. "It's like the Human thing how sexual tension is only apparent to those who aren't suffering from it."

"That's not just a Human thing…" Shepard suppressed a smile. It left the corners of her mouth twitching upwards.

"No way."

"Yes way."

Kress groaned and buried his face in his hands. This was getting them nowhere.

"I don't like what you're implying, Shepard."

"Yes way because I've seen how you look at Tali."

"What has she got to do with this?"

"Face it, Vakarian, you have the hots for a Quarian!"

"Vakarian…" Kress muttered, thinking back to his days in the Origin System, "I knew a guy called Vakarian once."

Shepard and Garrus stopped their arguing to stare at him. "What happened to him?" they asked simultaneously, startling Kress.

"He died," Kress answered, wondering why they were so worked up about it. Garrus seemed to deflate at that answer, almost shrinking into a depressed ball. "What? He stayed behind so the rest of us could escape. Vakarian was one of the greatest heroes the Tenno know."

"Tell us more," Shepard whispered, moving over to Garrus to comfort him. Nobody likes to hear that alternate-universe-you died.

Kress went on, not realising how much pain he'd just caused. "Okay. He was a nice guy, heart of platinum and all that, hell of a shot with a sniper rifle." He paused, realisation in his eyes. "I actually still have his Vectis in my Liset. Mom gave it to me after he… sacrificed himself." he finished, quiet. "He was a male Mesa. Always wore a blindfold; said he liked he challenge."

Garrus chuckled sadly while Tessa squirmed. "Sounds about right." he murmured.

"He stayed behind to blow the bomb and destroy the Infestation. It didn't do much good, in the end, you can't really destroy the Infestation. But we got two years to prepare before it showed up again, and because of that we've managed to save dozens of colonies and millions of lives." Kress told them. "As for physical, he was a male Mesa, dark blue hair, black eyes, and… I think I have a picture of him without his helmet on…" Kress dug at his waist for a disk, lighting it up to show a surprisingly Human face with sharp, angular features.

"Holy shit, Garrus… you're hot." Shepard said, mostly to herself as she gazed at the picture in awe.

"Thanks." Garrus replied dryly, although he had to admit he did look good… for a Human.

Kress looked at them, confused. "I guess I can see the resemblance." He tilted his head, frowning. "And that's about it. He preferred the Vectis and Redeemer. He never really liked sidearms or melee weapons."

"Were you two good friends?" Shepard asked softly, rubbing Garrus's back.

Kress shook his head. "He died before I was born."

Shepard's eyes widened. _I don't like where this is going…_ "So how do you know all this then?"

"My mother told me. Bellona Grace, Banshee." Kress said proudly, sitting up a little straighter. "One of the best singers in the Clan and easily the loudest."

Garrus seemed to drag himself out his funk, grabbing the disk from the floor and inspecting the face more closely. "So who was your father?" he asked, while Shepard mentally committed suicide.

Kress nodded to the hologram. "Him."

-.-.-.-

Thatch was still staring up into the heavens when the massive lizard-man sat down next to him.

"It's a beautiful sight, isn't it?" Thatch asked, lazily gesturing with one arm-rested hand.

"Yeah. I guess." the Krogan's gruff voice replied. "I see what you mean, it's just not my thing."

"To each his own." Thatch replied, staring at the beast. "Impressive scar," he nodded to the huge marking along the Krogan's face and crest. Somehow, in this strange place, he couldn't find himself to be bothered that he was talking to what was essentially a full-biological Rhino Warframe.

"Heh. That's a story for another time. I'm Wrex."

"Vladimir Thatch."

"That's a weird name, even for a Human." Wrex remarked, leaning back.

"I have been told it is quite uncommon, but it is still a name, and it is my own." Thatch told him, his eyes twinkling. "I suppose a name like Benezia is also uncommon among Humans?"

Wrex raised an eye-ridge at him. "Actually, I know a Benezia. She's an Asari Matriach though. And the enemy," he rumbled.

-.-.-.-

Tevos sat patiently, occasionally sipping very expensive and rather exquisite tea from a crystal cup while the two brutes beside her were fidgeting and moving and being annoying. "Sparatus could you please stop muttering?"

The Turian in question whipped his head around to glance at her. "She should be here by now."

Valern didn't look up from his datapad. "Shepard is on her way. We all knew when we picked her out as a Spectre candidate that she had a good soul and penance for helping others."

"True." Tevos nodded. "She works hard to save lives and it's been far too long since we had a Spectre as dedicated as her."

"Nihlus was just as good." Sparatus muttered, desperately wanting to get up and pace. "This is taking far too long." he growled, sending a vid-chat request to Shepard's omni-tool.

It pinged back after barely a moment, and the Council could see Shepard standing in what looked like a Nebulite Hotel suite, right next to Flux. "Yello?"

"Shepard, do you ever check who's calling you before answering?" Valern asked, finally looking up from his datapad to the display Sparatus had put on the coffee-table.

"Private ID." Shepard answered, rolling her eyes. "Honestly, you're the Council. Nobody's allowed to have your number, let alone know it's you when you're calling."

"Shall we move on?" Tevos suggested in such a way that nobody was going to argue. Except maybe Sparatus because he could be a complete iron-skull at times. "We've been reports of strange _Humans_ wandering the Citadel, Shepard. At first the reports were similar, but _now_, there are several more descriptions."

Shepard did look a little bit less confident all of a sudden. "Uh… yeah. Did you want me to investigate it while I'm waiting for leads on Saren?"

Valern shook his head. "Oh, no, Shepard, we already know you've got one of these persons on your crew."

"Shit." Shepard muttered. "Well, what'd you plan to do about it anyway?"

The three Councillors looked at one another. They hadn't really planned any further than thinly veiled threats to get more information.

"We…" Tevos paused, not sure what to say next. "We would like to know more."

"'Kay…" Shepard turned to face somewhere off-screen. "KRESS! GET IN HERE!" she yelled, making the three wince. Damn, she could be loud when she wanted to be.

Sparatus did a double-take when he saw the grey-haired blind teenager walk into view. "What-"

"Yes?" Kress asked, obviously ignoring the Council for now. "You called?"

"Yeah. Council wants to talk to ya. I'm gonna go check on Tessa and Garrus, try not to start a war or anything." Shepard told him, before walking off-screen. "Oh and if you try insulting the Destiny Ascension again _you will start a war._"

Kress sighed. "Noted. Don't insult giant floating junkers in front of the junker's proud owners." he grumbled, before turning to the Council. "Hello." he smiled and waved. "I'm Kress."

"Greetings, Kress. I am Tevos, this is Valern and Sparatus. We make up the Citadel Council." Tevos informed him, doing her best to ignore what he said about the Asari Dreadnaught.

"Cool. I know you're an Asari, he's a Turian, but what's he?" Kress asked, pointing to each of them in turn.

Valern chuckled. "I am the Salarian Councillor." he said. "It's a pleasure to meet you. I assume you are Human, correct?"

Kress shook his head, frowning slightly. "No. I'm Tenno."

Tevos was more than a little shocked. A new species? One that looked even more ridiculously Human than Asari? "Tell us more," she said, trying to make herself sound inviting rather than demanding.

"Sub-species of Human, I guess." Kress shrugged. "We're just Humans who can survive the Void and have been infected with the Technocyte Virus. And survived that." Kress smiled. "What are you up to?" he asked softly.

"I would like to examine one of you," Valern stated, noting down something on his datapad. "New species are always interesting."

"How about _no_." Kress scowled, actually looking mad. "The last guy who tried to 'examine' one of us tortured and mutilated them before trying to convert them into his own personal attack dog. When she escaped, he just did away with the next Tenno and cannibalised their Warframe into his own personal robotic attack dog. Seriously, the Zanuka is a literal _robotic attack dog._"

"We wouldn't-"

"You would." Kress interrupted Tevos, glaring at her. Evidently, despite the way his eyes looked, he was most definitely not blind. "Or someone else will. Everyone turns on us eventually." He seemed to switch moods again instantly. "I'm not the person to discuss this with. As soon as the Solar Rail is set up and other Tenno start coming through-"

"Wait, there's going to be more of you?!" Sparatus interrupted, as did Valern.

"What is a Solar Rail and why does it need to be set up?"

Kress groaned. "A Solar Rail is an analogue to your Mass Relays, if what Tessa told me is true. And yes, there will be more Tenno. Back home, we're incapable of getting out of the Origin System. Here, though… we can escape. We can evacuate our civilians to safety, maybe even end the War!" he explained, looking more and more ecstatic about the idea the more he talked. "Of course, organisation will be paramount," he muttered, starting to pace. Unfortunately for the Council, this was followed by Kress simply leaving.

Sparatus looked to Valern. "Did you get any of that?"

-.-.-.-

Shepard left Kress to deal with the Council while she checked on Tessa and Garrus. Finding out that there was a _Human_(ish) version of him was a shock and a half. Finding out that he was not only dead but had also fathered the young man in the other room was almost enough to send the poor Turian into a nervous breakdown.

At least, that's what Shepard thought.

"So…" she started, crouching down next to Tessa, "How're you holding up, Garrus?"

"I'm fine. Absolutely fine." Garrus replied, a little too tensely to be 'absolutely fine'. "Now all I can think about is how the Spirits did you manage to deal with Tessa calling you her mother."

Shepard shrugged, dragging her fingers through Tessa's pink hair to dislodge icicles. "As far as I remember, it basically went 'you and me assault Chora's Den while I send her off with the Lieutenant away from me'."

"True." Garrus sighed. "I don't know if he sees it." he said, hunching over to hold his face in his hands.

"Sees what?"

Garrus shot her a glance. "That I'm his alternate father."

Shepard smirked. "At least you know you've got a good chance with some hot gal who can sing named Bellona, right?"

"And that I have a good chance to die a futile death trying to stop an invasion." Garrus growled at her. "And by then, I'll have a kid that I never knew."

Shepard winced. "Well at least you'll get laid first, right?"

"SHEPARD, CAN YOU TRY BEING SERIOUS FOR JUST ONE MOMENT?!" Garrus nearly screamed at her.

Shepard growled, stood up, and leaned over him. "Look, Vakarian, this kid is practically grown up already. You wanna know what I'm in line to deal with in Tessa?" she jerked her thumb at the sleeping Tenno girl cocooned in blankets behind her, "Apparently, despite only being like three years younger than me, she hasn't hit puberty yet."

Garrus stared at her, looking only the tiniest smidge guilty.

"Yeah. Kress? The most he probably wants from you is a friend. Someone to look up to. He's smart, curious, and damn blunt." Shepard poked the Turian in the chest repeatedly, "Chances are he sees you as an alien uncle. Brother of his father. You don't even know if he wants to spend time with you yet."

Garrus desperately wanted to say something, and was looking around nervously, but Shepard was on a roll here.

"So if you want a parenting challenge, try adopting Tessa. That'll be a real handful for you." Shepard wasn't angry any more, but she needed to drive her point in. Not that she even remembered what the point was by now. "Suck it up, snipes, because we've got bigger problems to deal with."

She had the scariest feeling that there was someone in the doorway. Someone smiling. "Shepard," damnit, how much had Kress heard? "As much as I would like to accompany you and Uncle Garrus-" said Garrus made a startled mewling sound- "on missions and such, I'm afraid I may have to stay here. The Council seem to be annoyed at me… and I would like to stay and wait for the Solar Rail to arrive."

Shepard sighed and sat down next to Garrus. "How much did you hear?"

"I wasn't really listening until you said my name." Kress told her. "The Council is still on the… thing." He jerked his head to where the omni-tool screen was still sitting on a table.

"Damnit…" Shepard got up to deal with them, before she had a thought. "Kress, if you can get that shirtless one and tophatter to stay to deal with this Solar Rail thing, you could come with us on the hunt for Saren."

Kress thought about it. "I suppose. I'll ask Zen to record the event for me," he smiled, nodding. "It's a pleasure to join you, Commander."

-.-.-.-

**Please, review! I love to hear your feedback (good and bad). It helps me figure out what I'm doing wrong, what I'm doing write, and what I sorely need to work on :P **

**And yes, I am very sorry for using Elilia to mind-meld again. Breaking the fourth wall here but yes, it was only languages because Zen is goddamn lazy when it comes to languages. **

**~Pyro**

_Sneak peeks_

"How did you get an Orokin Cipher?" - "It was in the Prothean Vault."

"We cannot remember anything from before the Cryosleep, Kara, much less what the Sentients we were fighting were."

-.-.-.-


End file.
